Microsoft SBS for the home
Discussion
f1 too tricky then, Rich? 
Seriously, start with MS : www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/default.mspx
as thats got huge amounts of reasonably written stuff in it.
Seriously, start with MS : www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/default.mspx
as thats got huge amounts of reasonably written stuff in it.
randlemarcus said:
f1 too tricky then, Rich?
Seriously, start with MS : www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/default.mspx
as thats got huge amounts of reasonably written stuff in it.
Seriously, start with MS : www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/default.mspx
as thats got huge amounts of reasonably written stuff in it.
thanks a bunch...
i meant tips and tricks and non ms hints and tips on securing it if i want to open it up to the net
smart arses everywhere
My apologies, sirrah. Couldnt resist as this might be the thin end of the wedge that ends with you asking for romantic assistance....
If you have Premium, it has ISA 2004, which is a nice bit of kit. Sensible advice is to use the hardware firewall in your DSL router to stop inunvited inbound traffic (it should be configured this way), and then use ISA server to publish selected ports for things like SMTP, HTTP etc on an as needed basis, then configure the hardware firewall to do the same, so the external scan stops at the hardware, which passes allowed traffic to the ISA server, which exmanines it and passes it to the inside application.
If you have Premium, it has ISA 2004, which is a nice bit of kit. Sensible advice is to use the hardware firewall in your DSL router to stop inunvited inbound traffic (it should be configured this way), and then use ISA server to publish selected ports for things like SMTP, HTTP etc on an as needed basis, then configure the hardware firewall to do the same, so the external scan stops at the hardware, which passes allowed traffic to the ISA server, which exmanines it and passes it to the inside application.
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
It's a doddle to set up ... The only thing it does not do for you through the wizards ( exchange and vpn anyhow ) is to turn off smtp relaying. The only ports you need open are 500 501 25 and 443 to do exchange / remote access and vpn connections.
I'm not suggesting that's all there is to it!!
But if you want to run your own domain name then get a dyndns account and register your mail. and www. addresses there, pointing to your fixed external ip address. Then set up exchange and the vpn connector and you are up and running. Fire up the dhcp server as well instead of the one on the router.
General testing for smtp security ... google search for zone and smtp ... thre is a a tester that will check for relaying. Also do reverse dns lookups for inbound email and set to dump anything that is not destined to a 'real' name in exchange
have fun
arfur said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
It's a doddle to set up ... The only thing it does not do for you through the wizards ( exchange and vpn anyhow ) is to turn off smtp relaying. The only ports you need open are 500 501 25 and 443 to do exchange / remote access and vpn connections.
I'm not suggesting that's all there is to it!!
But if you want to run your own domain name then get a dyndns account and register your mail. and www. addresses there, pointing to your fixed external ip address. Then set up exchange and the vpn connector and you are up and running. Fire up the dhcp server as well instead of the one on the router.
General testing for smtp security ... google search for zone and smtp ... thre is a a tester that will check for relaying. Also do reverse dns lookups for inbound email and set to dump anything that is not destined to a 'real' name in exchange
have fun
thanks, ill give it a try tonight.
rich1231 said:
arfur said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
It's a doddle to set up ... The only thing it does not do for you through the wizards ( exchange and vpn anyhow ) is to turn off smtp relaying. The only ports you need open are 500 501 25 and 443 to do exchange / remote access and vpn connections.
I'm not suggesting that's all there is to it!!
But if you want to run your own domain name then get a dyndns account and register your mail. and www. addresses there, pointing to your fixed external ip address. Then set up exchange and the vpn connector and you are up and running. Fire up the dhcp server as well instead of the one on the router.
General testing for smtp security ... google search for zone and smtp ... thre is a a tester that will check for relaying. Also do reverse dns lookups for inbound email and set to dump anything that is not destined to a 'real' name in exchange
have fun
thanks, ill give it a try tonight.
I use it remotely all the time ... to access email and remote client pc's, shares etc etc ... To be honest ... it's the only bit of MS s/w that really has impressed me with it's out of the box functionality etc etc
cheers
arf
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
SOrry for not replying sooner...
My only reasoning is Windows Server + Internet facing = Need to be Anal and sure its secure.
Whilst the wizards make it easy to set up, its not hard to poke through a vuln once one is available, and by having your server 'out there' you'll be subjecting yourself and your connection to all sorts of risks.
You need to be absolutely sure that you know what you are doing - turning off the stuff you don't need, locking down IIS etc. STMP relaying is the least of your worries!
Also, I'd ensure that you have a hefty machine to hang it off - exchange and AD have a tendency to rape 'normal' machines and any site I've come across who have run SBS on a weak machine have complained that performance seriously suffers if any more than one user connects (due to disk I/O and CPU usage etc).
Bear in mind also, so you have the knowledge to restore your data should the machine die on you - are you going to be doing backups etc, and are you happy with being able to restore AD and exchange from whatever you back up to etc.
People really have forgotten the idea of the fact that just because SBS is a doddle to install that its not easy to keep running, and certainly how hard it is to support once it goes bad.
Exchange is a beat of an app when running happily - but if it starts throwing errors for whatever reason, its a git.
As far as I can see, you want the Outlook Web Access part of Exchange - unless you are using Public Folders and Calendar/Appointment sharing with other users, there isn't a lot else that you can't already get with Outlook Standalone.
Personally, although I have a spare Dell Poweredge 2600 sat at home with a SBS2k3 license sitting laid to waste, I wouldn't hang it off my own BB connection, nor would I want the grief of supporting it - for all of its benefits.
TBH Hotmail .live does 95% of the things Outlook does!
MY own opinion, so dont break my legs if you dont agree, just offering some input!
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:49
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:50
Neil_Bolton said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
SOrry for not replying sooner...
My only reasoning is Windows Server + Internet facing = Need to be Anal and sure its secure.
Whilst the wizards make it easy to set up, its not hard to poke through a vuln once one is available, and by having your server 'out there' you'll be subjecting yourself and your connection to all sorts of risks.
You need to be absolutely sure that you know what you are doing - turning off the stuff you don't need, locking down IIS etc. STMP relaying is the least of your worries!
Also, I'd ensure that you have a hefty machine to hang it off - exchange and AD have a tendency to rape 'normal' machines and any site I've come across who have run SBS on a weak machine have complained that performance seriously suffers if any more than one user connects (due to disk I/O and CPU usage etc).
Bear in mind also, so you have the knowledge to restore your data should the machine die on you - are you going to be doing backups etc, and are you happy with being able to restore AD and exchange from whatever you back up to etc.
People really have forgotten the idea of the fact that just because SBS is a doddle to install that its not easy to keep running, and certainly how hard it is to support once it goes bad.
Exchange is a beat of an app when running happily - but if it starts throwing errors for whatever reason, its a git.
As far as I can see, you want the Outlook Web Access part of Exchange - unless you are using Public Folders and Calendar/Appointment sharing with other users, there isn't a lot else that you can't already get with Outlook Standalone.
Personally, although I have a spare Dell Poweredge 2600 sat at home with a SBS2k3 license sitting laid to waste, I wouldn't hang it off my own BB connection, nor would I want the grief of supporting it - for all of its benefits.
TBH Hotmail .live does 95% of the things Outlook does!
MY own opinion, so dont break my legs if you dont agree, just offering some input!
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:49
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:50
Hi Neil thanks for the detail in your post.
I understand completely what you are getting at.
Id rather have something like Windows Home Server with Exchange added to it as it would deal with 90% of my requirements. But it isnt going to include Exchange.
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
SOrry for not replying sooner...
My only reasoning is Windows Server + Internet facing = Need to be Anal and sure its secure.
Whilst the wizards make it easy to set up, its not hard to poke through a vuln once one is available, and by having your server 'out there' you'll be subjecting yourself and your connection to all sorts of risks.
You need to be absolutely sure that you know what you are doing - turning off the stuff you don't need, locking down IIS etc. STMP relaying is the least of your worries!
Also, I'd ensure that you have a hefty machine to hang it off - exchange and AD have a tendency to rape 'normal' machines and any site I've come across who have run SBS on a weak machine have complained that performance seriously suffers if any more than one user connects (due to disk I/O and CPU usage etc).
Bear in mind also, so you have the knowledge to restore your data should the machine die on you - are you going to be doing backups etc, and are you happy with being able to restore AD and exchange from whatever you back up to etc.
People really have forgotten the idea of the fact that just because SBS is a doddle to install that its not easy to keep running, and certainly how hard it is to support once it goes bad.
Exchange is a beat of an app when running happily - but if it starts throwing errors for whatever reason, its a git.
As far as I can see, you want the Outlook Web Access part of Exchange - unless you are using Public Folders and Calendar/Appointment sharing with other users, there isn't a lot else that you can't already get with Outlook Standalone.
Personally, although I have a spare Dell Poweredge 2600 sat at home with a SBS2k3 license sitting laid to waste, I wouldn't hang it off my own BB connection, nor would I want the grief of supporting it - for all of its benefits.
TBH Hotmail .live does 95% of the things Outlook does!
MY own opinion, so dont break my legs if you dont agree, just offering some input!
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:49
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:50
Hi Neil thanks for the detail in your post.
I understand completely what you are getting at.
Id rather have something like Windows Home Server with Exchange added to it as it would deal with 90% of my requirements. But it isnt going to include Exchange.
Serious Q, why not stick it inside a PPTP VPN? That way you have two layers of defence.
BliarOut said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
SOrry for not replying sooner...
My only reasoning is Windows Server + Internet facing = Need to be Anal and sure its secure.
Whilst the wizards make it easy to set up, its not hard to poke through a vuln once one is available, and by having your server 'out there' you'll be subjecting yourself and your connection to all sorts of risks.
You need to be absolutely sure that you know what you are doing - turning off the stuff you don't need, locking down IIS etc. STMP relaying is the least of your worries!
Also, I'd ensure that you have a hefty machine to hang it off - exchange and AD have a tendency to rape 'normal' machines and any site I've come across who have run SBS on a weak machine have complained that performance seriously suffers if any more than one user connects (due to disk I/O and CPU usage etc).
Bear in mind also, so you have the knowledge to restore your data should the machine die on you - are you going to be doing backups etc, and are you happy with being able to restore AD and exchange from whatever you back up to etc.
People really have forgotten the idea of the fact that just because SBS is a doddle to install that its not easy to keep running, and certainly how hard it is to support once it goes bad.
Exchange is a beat of an app when running happily - but if it starts throwing errors for whatever reason, its a git.
As far as I can see, you want the Outlook Web Access part of Exchange - unless you are using Public Folders and Calendar/Appointment sharing with other users, there isn't a lot else that you can't already get with Outlook Standalone.
Personally, although I have a spare Dell Poweredge 2600 sat at home with a SBS2k3 license sitting laid to waste, I wouldn't hang it off my own BB connection, nor would I want the grief of supporting it - for all of its benefits.
TBH Hotmail .live does 95% of the things Outlook does!
MY own opinion, so dont break my legs if you dont agree, just offering some input!
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:49
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:50
Hi Neil thanks for the detail in your post.
I understand completely what you are getting at.
Id rather have something like Windows Home Server with Exchange added to it as it would deal with 90% of my requirements. But it isnt going to include Exchange.
Serious Q, why not stick it inside a PPTP VPN? That way you have two layers of defence.
Ill explore that..
have a dual DSL load balancing issue to resolve first
rich1231 said:
BliarOut said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
SOrry for not replying sooner...
My only reasoning is Windows Server + Internet facing = Need to be Anal and sure its secure.
Whilst the wizards make it easy to set up, its not hard to poke through a vuln once one is available, and by having your server 'out there' you'll be subjecting yourself and your connection to all sorts of risks.
You need to be absolutely sure that you know what you are doing - turning off the stuff you don't need, locking down IIS etc. STMP relaying is the least of your worries!
Also, I'd ensure that you have a hefty machine to hang it off - exchange and AD have a tendency to rape 'normal' machines and any site I've come across who have run SBS on a weak machine have complained that performance seriously suffers if any more than one user connects (due to disk I/O and CPU usage etc).
Bear in mind also, so you have the knowledge to restore your data should the machine die on you - are you going to be doing backups etc, and are you happy with being able to restore AD and exchange from whatever you back up to etc.
People really have forgotten the idea of the fact that just because SBS is a doddle to install that its not easy to keep running, and certainly how hard it is to support once it goes bad.
Exchange is a beat of an app when running happily - but if it starts throwing errors for whatever reason, its a git.
As far as I can see, you want the Outlook Web Access part of Exchange - unless you are using Public Folders and Calendar/Appointment sharing with other users, there isn't a lot else that you can't already get with Outlook Standalone.
Personally, although I have a spare Dell Poweredge 2600 sat at home with a SBS2k3 license sitting laid to waste, I wouldn't hang it off my own BB connection, nor would I want the grief of supporting it - for all of its benefits.
TBH Hotmail .live does 95% of the things Outlook does!
MY own opinion, so dont break my legs if you dont agree, just offering some input!
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:49
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:50
Hi Neil thanks for the detail in your post.
I understand completely what you are getting at.
Id rather have something like Windows Home Server with Exchange added to it as it would deal with 90% of my requirements. But it isnt going to include Exchange.
Serious Q, why not stick it inside a PPTP VPN? That way you have two layers of defence.
Ill explore that..
have a dual DSL load balancing issue to resolve first
Use dyndns.org and set up round robin dns ... then you can balance the dsl through dns
Neil_Bolton said:
rich1231 said:
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Cos i want to.. its free and I need access to Exchange and resources on the interweb.
Can you not assume that I have decided on it as a solution already?
SOrry for not replying sooner...
My only reasoning is Windows Server + Internet facing = Need to be Anal and sure its secure.
Whilst the wizards make it easy to set up, its not hard to poke through a vuln once one is available, and by having your server 'out there' you'll be subjecting yourself and your connection to all sorts of risks.
You need to be absolutely sure that you know what you are doing - turning off the stuff you don't need, locking down IIS etc. STMP relaying is the least of your worries!
Also, I'd ensure that you have a hefty machine to hang it off - exchange and AD have a tendency to rape 'normal' machines and any site I've come across who have run SBS on a weak machine have complained that performance seriously suffers if any more than one user connects (due to disk I/O and CPU usage etc).
Bear in mind also, so you have the knowledge to restore your data should the machine die on you - are you going to be doing backups etc, and are you happy with being able to restore AD and exchange from whatever you back up to etc.
People really have forgotten the idea of the fact that just because SBS is a doddle to install that its not easy to keep running, and certainly how hard it is to support once it goes bad.
Exchange is a beat of an app when running happily - but if it starts throwing errors for whatever reason, its a git.
As far as I can see, you want the Outlook Web Access part of Exchange - unless you are using Public Folders and Calendar/Appointment sharing with other users, there isn't a lot else that you can't already get with Outlook Standalone.
Personally, although I have a spare Dell Poweredge 2600 sat at home with a SBS2k3 license sitting laid to waste, I wouldn't hang it off my own BB connection, nor would I want the grief of supporting it - for all of its benefits.
TBH Hotmail .live does 95% of the things Outlook does!
MY own opinion, so dont break my legs if you dont agree, just offering some input!
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:49
Edited by Neil_Bolton on Friday 16th February 08:50
I agree that there is more too it than the wizards, but in general a good old google search will tell you what to turn off, what to allow to iis, access bindings and the rest. In fact I think there is a docco on the MS site that gives a good view of what to do.
As to big box ? Mine's been running solidly on a 1.3Centrino Laptop with 512 memory for the last year !
Still have not got the stuff from the CRM people Neil ... I'll send it on to you as soon as I do ... cheers
Neil_Bolton said:
I think the first thing to ask is: Why?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
Why on earth would you need to be running a Windows Server DC?
If you need exchange, perhaps, but for one person its an overkill. For anything else, even for us MS diehards, there are much better ways to do this...
What are you trying to do?
I use it just for myself at I have to say it does the job absolutely perfectly, in terms of allowing me access to the same Outlook data wherever I am, be it through OWA or RPC/HTTPS. Show me a 'much better' way to do this and I'll do it.
Hefty box - I'm using a 7 year old Dell PIII / 0.75GB RAM which would otherwise be fit for the skip - and it's absolutely fine. The same box ran SBS2000 for the first 5 years of it's life without missing a beat.
Security - as the other chap said configure ISA with it's Layer-7 inspection capabilities - it's very secure indeed. You can also use the SBS POP3 Connector (or ideally a superior third party equivalent) and pull your mail from POP boxes without having to expose port 25. As for OWA, etc. as long as you only expose HTTPS and ideally publish with ISA you should be fine.
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