Wrong answer!

[shellyhelm]

When my users type in the name of the exchange webmail server they sometimes get the router login screen instead of the exchange login screen! It may be happening only when the Exchange server is busy but it is very confusing to the end users! How do I prevent the router from responding to requests to the Exchange server?

[Hieu Cao]

Sounds like a DNS / WINS issue...so check the DNS to make sure that your DNS record has the correct IP address of the Exchange server.

A few things you may want to keep track..Does it happen from the same users? how often? any specific day / time?

[wochanda]

Is your exchange server behind a NAT router? Is this problem happening from other PCs behind the same NAT router?

I've seen an issue before where a PC behind a NAT router would try to go to the DNS name for a webserver (on the same private network). The DNS server would return the public IP of the webserver. When the PC tried to go to that IP, the router interpreted it as an incoming HTTP request, since static NAT translations only happen from an 'ip nat outside' interface.

Fix for this is getting a DNS server for your internal network, or modifying your HOSTS file in your PC to point at the private ip for the webserver.

[shellyhelm]

My router 192.168.1.1 is doing nat, my email server is on my dhcp server 192.168.1.15. this server is also acting as the DNS server. The problem seems to only occur when the Exchange server is busy and to all users on the internal network.

Thank you for your help! Any advice accepted and appreciated!