Laptops : sending emails inside/outside the company grounds

So .. How do you all deal with the fact that company laptops need to be able to send emails when they're sitting inside the company, on the network and thus able to get only the mail server's inside name resolution, and on the outside when they can only get the mail server's outside name resolution ?

We use mainly Microsoft Outlook, but we in IT also use Thunderbird.

Is there for instance a safe way in the inside DNS to resolve the outside name to the inside IP ?
We have Windows-based DNS service inside.

VPN

OWA

MLF

are they using exchange or pop? if its pop its a piece of cake if its exchange they have to either vpn in or you can setup rpc over https witch will allow them to use exchange anywhere it just tunnels through the firewall. OWA works well to but i'd say the most secure way would be the vpn solution, just have them connect to vpn then use email.

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its exchange they have to either vpn in or you can setup rpc over https witch will allow them to use exchange anywhere it just tunnels through the firewall.

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Actually Exchange can be configured to be POPed into as well.

Not that I'd suggest it mind you...I found it a pain in the butt to configure much less make secure...but it is possible.

also...if you are using a POP3 server with the exchange...you can tell exchange not to resolve certain users email in your domain and forward out to the POP3 server...where the user can pickup remotely.

MLF

They're using Pop. What is OWA ? And if it's cake, awesome, how do you do it?

Outlook Web Access...gives web access to exchange mailboxes through a web interface....works great

You need Exchange 2003 (2000 is too buggy)

MLF

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Originally Posted by Trevoke

Is there for instance a safe way in the inside DNS to resolve the outside name to the inside IP ?
We have Windows-based DNS service inside.

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add the external name to your internal dns and use the internal IP

Opus : I looked into that but I know zip about DNS. Should I add a CNAME, a HOST, an ALIAS, .... I get confused by the Windows interface, which makes things worse than just not knowing :)
How would I do that? Say my external name is mail.mycompany.com and my internal IP is 1.2.3.4

you enter an A record with the name of mail for the domain of mycompany.com with the ip of 1.2.3.4

I am guessing since i am a unix person, that an A record is a host

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Originally Posted by Trevoke

Opus : I looked into that but I know zip about DNS. Should I add a CNAME, a HOST, an ALIAS, .... I get confused by the Windows interface, which makes things worse than just not knowing :)
How would I do that? Say my external name is mail.mycompany.com and my internal IP is 1.2.3.4

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You just need to add a zone in your DNS server for your public domain name. Then you create an A record in your DNS zone for the server's hostname. In your example above, you would create a Primary zone for 'mycompany.com' and you would put an A record in that zone with the hostname 'mail'. If you go this route, you will need to make A records for all other external addresses as well since all DNS requests for that zone will be checked against your new zone. So for instance, you would need an A record for 'www'.

I was assuming they already had a zone internally to get to their outside resourses, which would be typical since they would need to access them to begin with. Not arguing, just not wanting to confuse him since he has professed he knows nothing about windows DNS.

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Originally Posted by Opus00

I was assuming they already had a zone internally to get to their outside resourses, which would be typical since they would need to access them to begin with. Not arguing, just not wanting to confuse him since he has professed he knows nothing about DNS.

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They might, but a lot of smaller shops just use the DNS service provided from their registrar for all external resources.

Okey-Dokey.
We do not have a zone for external addresses -- Forward/Reverse at all.

So, what is needed is to populate that zone with external resources? Does that mean, one A record per website, or can I get away with something more generic... ? And if so, what else is needed?
You guys may be better off sending me to a DNS FAQ/Howto, although I do appreciate answers tailored to my brand of ignorance :)

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Originally Posted by Trevoke

Okey-Dokey.
We do not have a zone for external addresses -- Forward/Reverse at all.

So, what is needed is to populate that zone with external resources? Does that mean, one A record per website, or can I get away with something more generic... ? And if so, what else is needed?
You guys may be better off sending me to a DNS FAQ/Howto, although I do appreciate answers tailored to my brand of ignorance :)

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You will need one A record for for each address that ends with your company's domain. If you had webmail.company.com, ftp.company.com, www.comapny.com, intranet.company.com; you would create a zone called company.com and add the following A records to it:

www
webmail
ftp
intranet

It is really not as complicated as it sounds. This looks like a decent tutorial:
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk...s/DNS_Home.htm

We use OWA here, and no one has ever complained about it. Check it out as MLF suggested, its a great feature.

Ah, but we don't use Exchange :)

Also, NeuTron, we don't host our own DNS, someone on the outside does - we just host our internal DNS.. Is that OK?

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Originally Posted by Trevoke

Ah, but we don't use Exchange :)

Also, NeuTron, we don't host our own DNS, someone on the outside does - we just host our internal DNS.. Is that OK?

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Yup Trevoke,
Thats what I assumed and so my instructions are for that scenario. Essentially, you will now be hosting DNS for your external hosts but only for the people in your network. This will give you the ability to map them properly, which was your problem to begin with. Good Luck and let me know if you have more questions.

Okay.. Before I do this, what do you mean by 'intranet' ? We don't have any internal machines with the same domain name as our outside domain name, if that's what you mean.

Ah, never mind, thanks NeuTron, I got it, and I did it, and now my company's happier thanks to you ;-)

Have a virtual beer.

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Originally Posted by Trevoke

Ah, never mind, thanks NeuTron, I got it, and I did it, and now my company's happier thanks to you ;-)

Have a virtual beer.

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Thats great to hear, Trevoke.