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How the Account Setup Assistant works
When the Entourage 2008 Account Setup Assistant is used to set up a Microsoft Exchange Server
mail account, the Account Setup Assistant performs the following steps to locate the information it
needs from the computer that is running Exchange server in the following sequence.
1. The Account Setup Assistant queries the DNS server for all DNS resource records for its
domain name. It is looking for the global catalog server (LDAP server) for the Active
Directory domain to which the user account belongs. To perform this query, the
Account Setup Assistant uses a DNS server that is configured in Mac OS X under
Network Preferences on the TCP/IP tab. If no DNS server has been configured, the
Account Setup Assistant uses a DNS server that is assigned by DHCP. This query returns
all of the resource records for the Active Directory domain controllers that are hosted
by the DNS server. The Account Setup Assistant then uses the priority rankings that are
returned by the DNS server to select the catalog server that it will use. After the global
catalog server is found, the Account Setup Assistant authenticates to that server and
then performs an LDAP query for the
homeMDB attribute of the user account. This
attribute provides the host name for the Exchange server that stores the user's mailbox.
In addition, the global catalog server is set as the Directory Service server for the
account.
2. If the query to the DNS server is not successful, the Account Setup Assistant tries to
locate the Exchange server by using the name of the domain that the user entered for
his or her Microsoft Exchange account. For example, if mydomain.microsoft.com was
entered as the domain for a Microsoft Exchange account, the Account Setup Assistant
creates a DNS query for the name mydomain.microsoft.com. The DNS resource records
that are returned in response to this query include the records for the domain
controllers in the domain, which then can be queried for the Exchange server
information.
3. If the Account Setup Assistant cannot find information about the Exchange server, it
provides the option to manually enter the information. The required information might
include the name or address of the Exchange server and the name or address of the
public folder server, which also provides the free/busy data.
Note If Entourage cannot find the
homeMDB attribute, this is usually because Entourage could
not find the user object in Active Directory. In this situation, you might find it useful to use the
LDP.exe tool to connect from a Windows-based computer to the LDAP service that is returned
by the DNS query. The LDP.exe tool is included in the Support Tools for Windows 2000 Server
and Windows Server 2003. Also, make sure that the user's Active Directory object is replicating
properly to the target domain controller and that the
homeMDB attribute is being returned
correctly.