LebGeeks

MrClass

Member

RPC error when configuring Exchange 2013 servers in 2nd site

Hello. I'm running into an error when trying to configure any of my Exchange 2013 servers in my 2nd AD site. To get into the loop of what my server structure looks like, please check below:

Site 1 servers:

DC1 - Domain Controller
DC2 - Domain Controller
CAS1 - CAS server
CAS2 - CAS server
MBX1 - Mailbox server
MBX2 - Mailbox server
MATHAFTMG - TMG server

Site 2 servers:

CCCDC1 - Domain Controller
CCCDC2 - Domain Controller
CCCCAS1 - CAS server
CCCCAS2 - CAS server
CCCMBX1 - MBX server
CCCMBX2 - MBX server
CCCTMG - TMG server

Currently I have a site-to-site vpn connection between site 1 and site 2 TMG servers via Internet connection; I can access the servers of the other site perfectly (whether I am in Site 1 or Site 2).

All user mailboxes are currently in Site 1 MBX servers; when users are in Site 2, they connect to the CAS servers in Site 1 to access their mailboxes.

Many users will stay permanently in Site 2, so it makes sense to have Exchange servers in Site 2 to provide faster access to mailboxes. I created the Site 2 domain controllers, and made sure AD replication is working; and it is. I then added the MBX servers and CAS servers in Site 2 in this order: CCCMBX1, then CCCCAS1, then CCCMBX2, then CCCCAS2.

All Exchange servers in Site 2 installed beautifully. But then I tried to access the servers via ECP to proceed with the configuration. In ECP, I click on the server link, and all Exchange servers in both sites appear. If I try to configure the virtual directories of Site 1 CAS servers, no problem. But when I try to configure virtual directories of Site 2 CAS servers, I get this error message: The task wasn't able to connect to IIS on the server 'CCCCAS1.domain.com'. Make sure that the server exists and can be reached from this computer: The RPC server is unavailable.

The virtual directories issue is just an example. Same thing happens if I try to configure Outlook Anywhere for Site 2 CAS servers.

Users connect to Site 1 CAS servers via mail.domain.com. I have the A record mail.domain.com pointing to the IP address of CAS1 server, and another A record mail.domain.com pointing to the IP address of CAS2 server. Not the best load balancing going on here, but it works great with Exchange 2013.

From mail.domain.com I can access OWA and ECP internally and externally; no problems there. From ECP I can access and configure any Site 1 Exchange 2013 servers.

The only problem is when I access ECP to configure the Site 2 Exchange 2013 servers, I get the same error message: The task wasn't able to connect to IIS on the server '<server name>.domain.com'. Make sure that the server exists and can be reached from this computer: The RPC server is unavailable.

Even if I try to access a Site 2 Exchange 2013 server via https://localhost/ecp to configure it, it get the same error message.

I updated all Exchange 2013 servers in both sites to CU2 v2 and rebooted the servers in the proper order; problem still there.

Any clue what might the problem be?

Thank you!

d3ad

Member

Re: RPC error when configuring Exchange 2013 servers in 2nd site

both sites are on same domain? are you able to run exchange cmdlets across sites (runninng any get command from server at site one to pull info from site 2 etc.)

if I am not mistaken you will need to configure a DAG also, so that users mailboxes are available on both sites.  specific error eventlog would be helpful also.

MrClass

Member

Re: RPC error when configuring Exchange 2013 servers in 2nd site

Yes both sites are on the same domain.

I tried running Get-OutlookAnywhere from CAS1 server in Site 1, I get information about CAS1 and CAS2 (both are in Site 1), but it gives me same error about CCCCAS1 and CCCCAS2 (both are in Site 2).

I also tried running Get-OutlookAnywhere from CCCCAS1 server in Site 2, I get information about CCCCAS1 and CCCCAS2 (which are in Site 2), but it gives me same error about CAS1 and CAS2 (both are in Site 1).

So it seems servers of a certain site can only read information of other servers in the same site, but not in the other site (Exchange power shell giving IISNotReachableException).

Maybe firewall issues? But I have configured the site-to-site vpn properly, any server in site 1 can ping any server in site 2 and vice versa, so why am I getting the above issue?

Maybe DNS issues? Definitely not, domain controllers in Site 1 replicate with domain controllers in Site 2 perfectly and vice versa. I can lookup hostnames of any system in any site and it works properly.

What else might it be?

I will configure DAG eventually, but DAG is not causing this issue. I'll do an intra-site DAG rather than an inter-site DAG cause Internet is shit in this country and it will cause me a headache to bring qurom when Internet is down (split brain syndrome).