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Publishing Communicator Web Access URLs

Topic Last Modified: 2009-03-06

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 enables users to invite other people, including anonymous users, to participate in instant messaging conferences, audio conferences, and desktop sharing sessions. To enable people to schedule and to join these conferences, Communicator Web Access (2007 R2 release) hosts a pair of Web pages (that is, dialin and join). Before you can use these pages for scheduling and joining conferences, the URLS must be published to Active Directory. You can do this either when you create a virtual server or later by using the Communicator Web Access snap-in.

When you publish URLs you are given four publishing options:

  • External virtual server URL
  • Internal virtual server URL
  • Dial-in conference information suffix
  • Anonymous conference join suffix

The dial-in conference information suffix is the name of the page where users can configure dial-in conference information. By default, the dial-in conference information suffix (that is, page name) is dialin. If your primary Communicator Web Access URL is https://im.contoso.com then your dial-in conferencing page would be https://im.contoso.com/dialin. The conference join suffix is the page where users are sent to join a conference. By default, the conference join suffix is join. You cannot change either of these values.

The external and internal virtual server URLs represent the primary Communicator Web Access URL. When you invite someone to join a conference Communicator Web Access, you use this address when you create the conference invitation. If you support both internal and external URLs it is recommended that both of these values be set to the URL of the external virtual server. This is recommended, in part, because the Conferencing Add-in for Microsoft Outlook, the tool that is typically used for conference scheduling, only displays the external URL. The internal URL is not available in the tool. Setting the two URLs to the same value will cause no problems for internal or external users who try to join a conference.

If you support only internal users, set both of these values to the URL of your internal virtual server.

URLs typically need to be published just once. You only need to republish URLs if you change your primary Communicator Web Access URL (for example, changing https://im.contoso.com to https://cwa.contoso.com).

To publish Communicator Web Access URLs during deployment

  1. On the Deploy Communicator Web Access page, at Step 4: Publish Communicator Web Access URLs, click Run.

  2. On the Publish Web Address page, in both the External web address (URL) and Internal web address (URL) boxes, type the URL that users outside the organization’s firewall use to sign in to the Communicator Web Access client (for example, https://im.contoso.com).

  3. Click Publish.

As noted, URLs can also be published using the Communicator Web Access snap-in.

To publish Communicator Web Access URLs using the Communicator Web Access snap-in

  1. Log on to the computer where the Communicator Web Access snap-in has been installed. Note that, in order to publish URLs, you must be a member of the local Administrators group and a member of the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group.

  2. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Communicator Web Access.

  3. In the console tree, right-click Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Communicator Web Access and then click Publish Web Addresses.

  4. On the Publish Web Address page, in both the External web address (URL) and Internal web address (URL) boxes, type the URL that users outside the organization’s firewall use to sign in to the Communicator Web Access client (for example, https://im.contoso.com).

  5. Click Publish.

If you need to know which URLs and suffixes have been published to Active Directory, you can retrieve this information using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

To verify published URLs

  1. On a computer where Communicator Web Access has been installed, click Start and then click Run.

  2. In the Run dialog box, type wbemtest and then click OK.

  3. In the Windows Management Instrumentation Tester, click Connect.

  4. In the Namespace box, if necessary, type root\cimv2. Click Connect.

  5. In the Windows Management Instrumentation Tester, click Open Class.

  6. In the Get Class Name dialog box, in the Enter Target Class Name box, type MSFT_SIPGlobalCWAServerConfigSetting and then click OK.

  7. In the Object editor for MSFT_SIPGlobalCWAServerConfigSetting dialog box, click Hide System Properties and then click Instances.

  8. In the Query Result dialog box, double click the lone instance of the MSFT_SIPGlobalCWAServerConfigSetting class.