Thursday 3 July 2008

SBS - Quick Companyweb Internet Access Link

When we have published the Companyweb site to the Internet via the CEICW and the Remote Web Workplace, there is a very quick way to gain access: Create an Internet shortcut.

Here are the quick links to the Companyweb root site:
  • SBS 2003
    • https://rww.mysbsdomain.com:444
  • SBS 2008:
    • https://rww.mysbsdomain.com:987
With this knowledge in hand, we can setup a number of interesting data sharing scenarios based on the built-in SharePoint setup in both versions of SBS.

We could create a document library that only a particular set of domain and non-domain (Extranet) restricted users have access to such as ExternalCompany.

In the above example, we would have the following links:
  • SBS 2003
    • https://rww.mysbsdomain.com:444/ExternalCompany
  • SBS 2008:
    • https://rww.mysbsdomain.com:987/ExternalCompany
One could also go so far as to create a SharePoint site that uses the above URL or another set by the domain admin with the appropriate permissions set for that site.

Depending on the situation, an Active Directory OU, Group Policy, and NTFS ACL setups could be utilized to restrict a particular group to the SharePoint site only.

For those that require a distinct separation from their Active Directory domain, the External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint would work well. The setup in this case would require us to have a second server setup with IIS6/7 and SharePoint V3 installed.

If the extranet business relationship and data security warrants it, a second level authentication setup could be utilized in the form of AuthAnvil from Scorpion Software. This method of security would completely restrict access to any Internet facing resources to those who hold an AuthAnvil hardware token and a valid user name and password. The cost for the product is very inexpensive relative to the extra level of security it provides.

Some SharePoint related links: Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

10 comments:

stryqx said...

Hi Philip,

You can do ECTS on SBS without requiring the use of a second box. I pestered the ECTS PM for this very feature.

Hmmm, reminds me that I should stop being lazy and blog my instructions for setting this up.

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

Chris,

Good idea ... my look through the documentation has been at a skim level to date.

However, as I recall and am looking at the Deployment and Operations Guide, there are no specific SBS tasks?

That may be why I haven't looked deeper into it yet.

We will be using the ECTS on our SharePoint site when we bring it online though. So, at some point I will be drilling deeper into the setup and deployment.

So, please do publish a post and update us on your progress!

Thanks for that,

Philip

Shawn Gleason said...

Chris/Phillip,

Has anyone published any documentation for implementing the ECTS on SBS 2003 Premium with ISA 2004? Thanks !

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

Shawn,

I have not seen anything to date.

With the ECTS capable SharePoint on SBS 2008 the actual need to look into ECTS on SBS 2003 has dropped a number of pegs on the To Do list.

Chris, you have any input?

Philip

Shawn Gleason said...

Phillip,

Thanks much. Pretty much what I expected, but of course, I have a client who LOVES ISA 2004 and has no plans to upgrade in the near future ;-) If you hear anything from Chris, please let me know. Thanks Again !

Shawn Gleason said...

Phillip,

Have you deployed on SBS 2008? If so, do you have any documentation?

Thanks,

Shawn

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

Shawn,

If by deploy you mean for ECTS on SBS 2008 there is no need to.

The SBS Dev team took the abilities of WSS v3 plus a split DNS setup to give us the ability to have dedicated externally available SharePoint sites.

On SBS 2008, that site would look like:
https://remote.mysbsdomain.com:987/sites/MyCollaborationSite

Permissions are essentially blank on the new site giving the admin the ability to tailor the site security to internal and external users.

Philip

Shawn Gleason said...

Phillip,

Excellent. I have a client (Marketing company)who would like to bring up external collab sites for various clint project documentation sharing. Basically, I will need to have 5 or 10 external client sites running at the same time. Will sbs 2008 handle this setup ?

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

Shawn,

Yes.

Another option would be a dedicated SharePoint hosted site by OWN is another option.

Philip

Shawn Gleason said...

Thanks Phillip. I have a client who insists on implementing on an in-house server ;-) So I guess I will begin loading a sbs 2008 this evening. Do you happen to have any documentation on configuring the external collections?