Exchange 2013 ECP unable to login

Question

I'm so angry that it is possible to get into this situation, but here goes.

I had a perfectly operational exchange 2013 server which I was about to commission into production. Before doing so I was investigating a minor issue with RPC over HTTP and changed the authentication methods for the ECP and OWA from forms to Basic and Windows. Here it all went wrong.

Unable to login, unable to access PS. The whole thing fell apart.

There have been so many steps, I'll recite the ones I can remember.

1. Had to reassign the SSL cert in IIS to gain PS access again
2. Attempted to correct the ECP and OWA authentication methods for the back end and default website via PS
3. Removed and recreated the ECP and OWA virtual directories via PS

I can now access the (ECP) login form, however when I use my previously working credentials (I have several) to log into the ECP I'm informed my credentials are incorrect. (They are now, I can RDP to the server with them and before all this started they were fine)

I must have messed up the authentication communication somehow. I did in my panic after changing the authentication methods in the ECP (when I had access) attempt to fix them in IIS, so I suspect I've really messed something up.

What do I need to do to get Exchange to communicate with the domain and authenticate again? (the exchange server is also a domain controller, one of two)

Answer 1

I've had a similar issue, and there are plenty of other suffers out there too. There's a bug in CU2 that can cause problems with the install of the ECP site, which is what bit me.

Assuming you have both the CAS and database server roles installed on this Exchange server then it may not be enough to simply delete and re-create the CAS ECP virtual directory without doing some tidying up inbetween.

To fully re-create your ECP site, you may need to carry out the following steps (as per this blog entry)

1. Delete the CAS ECP web application: Remove-EcpVirtualDirectory -Identity "Exchange01\ecp (Default Web Site)"

2. Remove MSExchangeECPAppPool from IIS, and remove all references to the Default Web Site/ECP site from c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationhost.config

3. Re-create the CAS ECP web application: New-EcpVirtualDirectory -WebSiteName "Default Web Site" -InternalUrl "https://server1.example.com/ecp"

4. Check the Exchange Back End/ecp site is created correctly, and repair/create it if needed, as per the blog link above.