Yes VPN, no ActiveSync. Should Exchange still work?

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Yes VPN, no ActiveSync. Should Exchange still work?

My company IT guy is unwilling to open up the ActivSync port. But he is okay with our iPhones connecting via the Cisco VPN client. So I've been able to get the VPN connection going and I tried to set up an Exchange account. For a while I kept getting "verification failed" messages, then finally it connected but told me it might have trouble synching. I turned SSL off as well to get to this point. So now I have an Exchange account set up, but I haven't been able to send or receive mail through it while connected to VPN.

Googling around it seems everyone doing the Exchange setup is using ActivSync. Should I still be able to read my email just over VPN? I know there won't be the push type stuff that I would otherwise get, but is this the right way to set it up if I'm using VPN? Is there another way? Anyone else trying this?

My IT guy tried it on a coworker's phone and had similar problems. It's mostly up to us users to figure things out, since these aren't officially business phones, but the little bit of research he's done hasn't revealed much.

I'm using the old iPhone with the new 2.0 OS.

Macbook 2.0GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Jul 15, 2008 7:40 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 15, 2008 10:11 AM in response to olinerd

Nope. You need it enabled.

"iPhone communicates directly with your Microsoft Exchange Server via Microsoft
Exchange ActiveSync (EAS). Exchange ActiveSync maintains a connection between the
Exchange Server and iPhone so that when a new email message or meeting invitation
arrives iPhone is instantly updated. iPod touch doesn’t have a cellular connection, so it
receives push notifications only when it is active and connected to a Wi-Fi network. " - Enterprise Deployment Guide

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Answer 2

Jul 16, 2008 2:56 AM in response to olinerd

Okay, silly question, why is your IT guy unwilling to open up the ActiveSync port?

It is unlikely that you can get ActiveSync working through a VPN, but you might, and I stress MIGHT be able to get IMAP working through a VPN, however that will only allow mail to be synced, without PUSH. For Contacts and Calanders you're out of luck without ActiveSync.

If your IT guy is concerned about data confidentialy, *remind him* of the remote wipe option for the phones. Also *remind him* that you can specify how far back you want the emails to be, the options being 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month (default) or "no limit".

If your IT guy wants to allow people to use Mail and Contacts with their iPhone productively he is going to have to enable the ActiveSync. If he doesn't know how, I will be happy to provide assistance.

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Answer 3

olinerd Author

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Jul 16, 2008 3:52 AM in response to nightkhaos

Because he's the only IT guy at our reasonably sized company and he doesn't want to deal with the security issues that come with having that open. No webmail for us either. Our executives and such have Blackberries, so it hasn't been a problem till now, and like I said, those of us with iPhones have them as our personal phones, NOT business phones, so this is a "nice to have" and not something we can realistically argue productivity about. If we really needed offiste email access, we'd already have been given Blackberries.

Anyway, so I know I can't get push email. I guess my questions is just more of, if I have VPN set up, should I be able to get my work email somehow? Though looking around I found something that says that 3000 series Cisco routers (?) don't work with the iPhone... and that's what we've got. So it may be a moot point anyway.

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Answer 4

Jul 16, 2008 3:57 AM in response to olinerd

Okay, this may sould odd, but if I remember correctly RIM (the service Blackberries use) simply uses a slightly modifed version of IMAP-IDLE. You should, in THEORY, be able to connect to the RIM server using your Blackberry, but don't quote me on that. 🙂

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