This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

SBS 2008 - Exchange 2007 - Unable to Install PureMessage 3.1.3

Hi all

I'm new to the forum so please bear with me.

Basically before i joined the company we had version 3 of Sophos PureMessage installed, along with the Enterprise Console and the AV solution. However this expired some time ago and we have been using an alternative AV, PureMessage has continued to do a good job though of catching a good majority of the spam before getting to Exchange.

I have managed to get the green light to update to the latest version of PureMessage for Exchange 2007 which currently is 3.1.3, however when i goto do this it refuses to update, citing an issue with: Logon Failure: unknown user name or bad password even though i am logged on as a domain administrator. When we do eventually get this error though it mentions in the error message box that it can't contact the AD/LDAP server. I've spent hours on this trying to resolve it, but without much luck. I'm even in contact with the 2nd/3rd line support teams who don't seem to know what to do either.

Basically we had an old version of Sophos PureMessage (v3.0) on our SBS 2008 server running Exchange 2007, and we wanted to upgrade this to 3.1.1. That in itself is fine, however during the installation no matter what we seemed to do it wouldn't upgrade to the new version. We have now uninstalled PureMessage in order to install it again from scratch.

However the same problem now happens on a new installation. During the setup process it asks to create a new password for the predefined user of 'SophosPureMessage' but according to the error message the password complexity requirements don't meet what the domain wants - even though i have entered passwords as long as 15-20 characters and include alphanumeric, uppercase, lowercase, multiple special characters. What we have tried is creating a network user of SophosPureMessage manually instead which then lets us past this stage, however the setup will fail during the last stages of the setup as it says it is unable to contact the AD domain because of logon failure. However we know that the AD domain is contactable as all other domain services work fine (DNS, Email, Logon etc).

Our server is configured to run using a domain format of XXX.local, however the error message doesn't include the '.local' in the error message of the installer. It just says unable to contact XXX.

I have been working with the 3rd line teams for Sophos support who have been very good, but we aren't getting anywhere after more then a week. What they did suggest is running a VBS script which had the following, because of the problem. For now i am just putting XXX to substitute our own domain name.
======================
const ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION = &H0001

Set oDSP = GetObject("LDAP:")
Set obj = oDSP.OpenDSObject("LDAP://XXX/rootDSE",vbNullString,vbNullString,ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION)
WScript.Echo obj.Get("configurationNamingContext")
======================

Using command prompt, we then run the following command (with elevated privileges) on the root of C: cscript test.vbs > test.txt

We are getting an error that came back with: c:\Test.vbs(4, 1) (null): Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.

I have done an NSLOOKUP command for our domain are the following is returned:

c:\>nslookup XXX
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
Server:  UnKnown
Address:  fe80::5be1:f55d:a87f:965a

Name:    XXX.XXX.local
Address:  10.0.0.32

Does anyone know why, or more importantly how to fix this error at all?? Some forums have suggested turning on IPV6 but this is already switched on so i don't believe this is the issue.

 Other things that i can confirm:
- Being an SBS server this is the only domain controller on the domain
- We are logging on as a domain administrator
- The server doesn't run DHCP



This thread was automatically locked due to age.
Parents
  • I have exactly the same problem. In my case, we were migrating from another Antispam product and doing a clean installation of Puremessage. During the installation process, the installer tries to create a user domain\SophosPureMessage. You move to the dialogue to create a password and the installation fails with a message that the password doesn't meet complexity requirements. In spite of the fact that password complexity has been disabled, no password, no matter how complex will work. Like BenDance, I tried manually creating the user in Active Directory. In this case, the installer proceeds past the initial screens but fails just as installation is about to commence with an error that the user is unable to authenticate.
    I have had exhaustive communications with SOPHOS support without success. Ironically, every other application and installation I try is successful including SOPHOS Enterprise Console and, of course our previous SPAM application, Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange.
    I have had Microsoft experts look into the Windows application (SBS 2008) no anomalies were found. I can only conclude that there is some fundamental flaw with the Pure Message installer that causes this problem. Annoyingly, it is not possible to make any changes to the name or domain settings for the user xxxx\SophosPureMessage. I suspect that the installer is not using the full domain name i.e. SophosPureMessage@xxxx.com or xxx.local\SophosPureMessage and the user (person installing the package) has no control over this.
    I have installed Sophos Puremessage on several SBS 2011 servers without a problem. I have also installed on Server 2008 R2 Standard Domain Controller with Exchange 2010 installed without issue. Also Server 2012 R2 with Exchange 2013 is OK.
    I am really worried that I have several clients with SBS 2008 that I am about to install Puremessage on that this problem will arise again.
    Can anyone categorically confirm that they have successfully installed Puremessage on SBS 2008 Standard? Maybe the SOPHOS developers need to look very closely at this glitch.
Reply
  • I have exactly the same problem. In my case, we were migrating from another Antispam product and doing a clean installation of Puremessage. During the installation process, the installer tries to create a user domain\SophosPureMessage. You move to the dialogue to create a password and the installation fails with a message that the password doesn't meet complexity requirements. In spite of the fact that password complexity has been disabled, no password, no matter how complex will work. Like BenDance, I tried manually creating the user in Active Directory. In this case, the installer proceeds past the initial screens but fails just as installation is about to commence with an error that the user is unable to authenticate.
    I have had exhaustive communications with SOPHOS support without success. Ironically, every other application and installation I try is successful including SOPHOS Enterprise Console and, of course our previous SPAM application, Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange.
    I have had Microsoft experts look into the Windows application (SBS 2008) no anomalies were found. I can only conclude that there is some fundamental flaw with the Pure Message installer that causes this problem. Annoyingly, it is not possible to make any changes to the name or domain settings for the user xxxx\SophosPureMessage. I suspect that the installer is not using the full domain name i.e. SophosPureMessage@xxxx.com or xxx.local\SophosPureMessage and the user (person installing the package) has no control over this.
    I have installed Sophos Puremessage on several SBS 2011 servers without a problem. I have also installed on Server 2008 R2 Standard Domain Controller with Exchange 2010 installed without issue. Also Server 2012 R2 with Exchange 2013 is OK.
    I am really worried that I have several clients with SBS 2008 that I am about to install Puremessage on that this problem will arise again.
    Can anyone categorically confirm that they have successfully installed Puremessage on SBS 2008 Standard? Maybe the SOPHOS developers need to look very closely at this glitch.
Children
No Data