Topic: IMP and IE for Macintosh

[Richard Bruce]

Has anyone had any luck accessing the IMP webmail panel using IE 5.0 or 5.1 for Macintosh?  The problem appears to be the inability of IE to accept a security certificate from a non-verified source. I can do this quite easily using Netscape and allowing it to import the cert. generated by our SME 5.1.2 box, but our install base on around 200 Macs is IE 5.0. I don't fancy having to install Netscape on 200 machines! If anyone has found a way to "jury rig" this I'd be interested  to know.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Richard Bruce

[Mats Nordahl]

I have the same problem and I have asked the same question before but I havent got any ansver. It seams that there are no place for Mac's in the SME community.

[John Lewis]

You could get the certificate verified at thawte or verisign or one of the others...

Or, you could allow users to access webmail throught regular http instead of https

I have several mac's using explorer, so went with the latter option.

[robert]

Mats Nordahl wrote:
>
> I have the same problem and I have asked the same question
> before but I havent got any ansver. It seams that there are
> no place for Mac's in the SME community.

I think it would be more accurate to state that there is no place for anything non-Microsoft in the Microsoft community. I have encountered the same problem on my Mac IE5 and wondered why this was no problem for Netscape or iCab. In fact, IE on Windows nags about the security certificate as well, but at least it will allow you to accept it. So, you should really go to Microsoft with this complaint and demand that they make IE on Mac accept self-signed certificates. Alternatively, you could buy a 'real' certificate for your site issued by a security certificate authority. Mac IE should accept these.

[Charlie Brady]

Mats Nordahl wrote:
 
> I have the same problem and I have asked the same question
> before but I havent got any ansver. It seams that there are
> no place for Mac's in the SME community.

That's not fair. It's an IE issue, not an SME server one. Any site running any software could have a self-signed certificate (or one signed by some other unknown authority). I'm sure that there is a way to configure IE to accept such certificates, it's just a matter of finding that way.

Regards

Charlie

[Mats Nordahl]

>
> Mats Nordahl wrote:
>  
> > I have the same problem and I have asked the same question
> > before but I havent got any ansver. It seams that there are
> > no place for Mac's in the SME community.
>
>Charlie Brady wrote:
> That's not fair. It's an IE issue, not an SME server one. Any
> site running any software could have a self-signed
> certificate (or one signed by some other unknown authority).

I did not mean that it was a SME issue, the only thing i meant
was that it is wery hard to get help when the help is needed.
SME is a very good product and it is getting better every day.

> I'm sure that there is a way to configure IE to accept such
> certificates, it's just a matter of finding that way.
>
> Regards
>
> Charlie

[Rich Lafferty]

Mats Nordahl wrote:
>
> I did not mean that it was a SME issue, the only thing i meant
> was that it is wery hard to get help when the help is needed.
> SME is a very good product and it is getting better every day.

Please keep in mind that if you find it hard to get help on these forums,
that's because the other forum participants either don't know or haven't
bothered to answer (or both!). The forums are *not* an official Mitel support
channel, and with the occasional exception (like this one!) Mitel employees
who post here do so as individuals on their own time.

Should you have business needs that require better or more timely
support than the users of these forums can provide, I'd encourage you
to contact one of our Authorized Partners; a list sorted geographically
is available at

http://www.e-smith.com/partners/

(As always, bug reports for SME Server should be reported to
bugs@e-smith.com. We welcome bug reports from all users with
or without support contracts, although we can't promise to provide
an immediate fix or workaround for every bug reported.)

Cheers,

Rich Lafferty
Network Server Solutions Group
Mitel Networks

[Rico Bach]

Try to run import the server certificate located in
/home/e-smith/ssl.crt
on the Mac, i have no problems in accesing the secure web mail on mac

Rico Bach

[robert]

Rico Bach wrote:
>
> Try to run import the server certificate located in
> /home/e-smith/ssl.crt
> on the Mac, i have no problems in accesing the secure web
> mail on mac
>
How does that work specifically? Could you expand on this? Does this work with IE5?

[Rico Bach]

I just connected to the server with ssh
and copy the files to to my homedir

    cd /home/e-smith/files/users/admin
    cp -R /home/e-smith/ssl.crt .
    chmod -R 775 *

Then i copy the files to the mac harddrive and open the file
    secure.domainname.com.crt
in internet explore en add the file to my keyring

I was using IE 5.5

Rico Bach

[Richard Bruce]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. IMHO this is definitely a Microshaft problem rather than an SME one. Why can't they allow their Mac browser to accept self-signed certs? Their PC version does, and Netscape can. I've noticed on the latest version of 5.5 that there is a statement in the help section under "Change Certificate Settings" that states as follows: "Microsoft Internet Explorer cannot verify personal certificates or certificates that verify the identity of a file server on a network." What it should say, again IMHO, is "MIE does not support personal.....".

Anyway, back to the problem. I'm going to look at Rico's suggestion, although I can't get it clear in my head exactly what this will do, but I'll follow the instructions to the letter and report back. Glad to see we're not the only ones in the SME community using Macs!

Thanks again.

Richard Bruce

[Richard Bruce]

OK. when I do the what Rico has suggested above (it's actually easier to use an ibay that has Mac access to it , than the admin folder, but either works fine) and then open the secure.mydomain.crt file in IE 5.1 I receive a "The identity certificate is invalid" error.

It looks like IE 5.5 (OSX version I think) will work OK, but not IE5.1.

Any other suggestions out there?

Thanks

Richard Bruce

[Rico Bach]

Richard,
Try to take a look at this links

http://digitalid.verisign.com/server/trial/trialStep4.htm
  This is if you create a trial id from verisign an it is the same you want to do
  "import" the server certificate in the internet explorer and make this host trusted

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q297681
  A support document from microsoft about this issue but for windows but
  some of the triks also work with Mac

Rico Bach

[Rico Bach]

Sorry, i gave you the wrong IE version before i use 5.1 on OS 9

Rico Bach

[robert]

Has anyone else besides Rico got this working? Rico, what is the secret to get IE5 or IE5.1 on MacOS9 to accept self-signed certificates. Could you offer us an extended step-by-step version of the instructions you gave before, which had me (and a few others) puzzled?

TIA,
Robert