If you’ve made the mistake of goofing up the webfarm FQDN question during the OCS setup, you know it can be a pain. The trick, as I’ve complained about before, is that when the OCS installer asks people to put in the "External Web Farm FQDN" lots and lots of people get confused and think that "Web Farm" refers to the Web Conferencing / LiveMeeting aspect of OCS. But it doesn’t – it’s just referring to the Address Book, Group Distribution Expansion, and LiveMeeting Content Download services. So the installer is actually asking you: "What FQDN do you want to later on publish to the outside for external OCS clients to use to download the Address Book?"
If you’ve fallen victim to this, you get mad, because once you’ve figured out the misunderstanding, there’s no way to set the External WebFarm FQDN in the GUI. None of this is new: there are blog posts and KB articles describing how to fix it. One way is using LCSCMD – it’s pretty handy and I’ve had to do it a bunch of times. OK – so I’m not just wasting your time here rehashing existing knowledge. What I’ve found out is that there is no way to update the InternalWebFQDN through LCSCMD. You must use WBmetest.
The otherway, described in the KB article, uses wbemtest and is a little trickier. Here are the steps, copied from the KB below. But where it references "externalDLExpansionWebURL" etc., open the "internal" version of that property and edit it to read "https://yourocspoolname.domain.internal/GroupExpansion/Ext/service.asmx".
To configure the external Web farm FQDN, follow these steps:
|
1. |
Log on to the computer that is running Communications Server 2007 Standard Edition or Communications Server 2007 Enterprise edition by using an account that is a member of the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group or that has equivalent permissions. |
|
2. |
Click Start, click Run, type wbemtest, and then click OK. |
|
3. |
In the Windows Management Instrumentation Tester dialog box, click Connect. |
|
4. |
In the Connect dialog box, type rootcimv2 in the Namespace box, and then click Connect. |
|
5. |
In the Windows Management Instrumentation Tester dialog box, click Query. |
|
6. |
In the Query dialog box, type the following in the Enter Query box according to the edition of Communications Server 2007 that you are using, and then click Apply: For Communications Server 2007 Enterprise pool Select * from MSFT_SIPGroupExpansionSetting where backend="server name\sql instance" For Communications Server 2007 Standard Edition Select * from MSFT_SIPGroupExpansionSetting where backend="(local)\rtc" |
|
7. |
In the Query Result dialog box, double-click the result. |
|
8. |
Select ExternalDLExpansionWebURL, and then click Edit Property. |
|
9. |
In the Property Editor dialog box, click to select the Not NULL option. |
|
10. |
In the Value box, type the external Web farm URL in the following format, and then click Save Property and Save Object: https://externalurl.domain.com/GroupExpansion/Ext/service.asmx |
|
11. |
Click Save Object, and then click Close. |
|
12. |
In the Windows Management Instrumentation Tester dialog box, click Query. |
|
13. |
In the Query dialog box, type the following in the Enter Query box according to the edition of Communications Server 2007 that you are using, and then click Apply: For Communications Server 2007 Enterprise pool Select * from MSFT_SIPDataMCUCapabilitySetting where backend="server name\sql instance" For Communications Server 2007 Standard Edition Select * from MSFT_SIPDataMCUCapabilitySetting where backend="(local)\rtc" |
|
14. |
In the Query Result dialog box, double-click the result. |
|
15. |
Select ExternalClientContentDownloadURL, and then click Edit Property. |
|
16. |
In the Property Editor dialog box, click to select the Not NULL option. |
|
17. |
In the Value box, type the external Web farm URL in the following format, and then click Save Property and Save Object: https://externalurl.domain.com/etc/place/null |
|
18. |
Click Save Object, and then click Close. |
|
19. |
In the Windows Management Instrumentation Tester dialog box, click Query. |
|
20. |
In the Query dialog box, type the following in the Enter Query box according to the edition of Communications Server 2007 that you are using, and then click Apply: For Communications Server 2007 Enterprise pool For Communications Server 2007 Standard Edition |
|
21. |
In the Query Result dialog box, double-click the result. |
|
22. |
Select ExternalURL, and then click Edit Property. |
|
23. |
In the Property Editor dialog box, click to select the Not NULL option. |
|
24. |
In the Value box, type the external Web farm URL in the following format, and then click Save Property and Save Object: https://externalurl.domain.com/abs/Ext/Handler |
|
25. |
Click Save Object, and then click Close. |
|
26. |
Click Exit. |
Obviously repeat this same concept for the other services. I had to do this recently and it works well. I’m still kinda wishing that there were an LCSCMD switch for this, but oh well… Most people I guess normally get that "internal web farm fqdn" means your pool name for consolidated EE or SE, or the servername for expanded EE. But even so, if you’ve goofed it up, it would be nice to fix it a little more easily.
