Apple Mac Safari unable to open Exchange Server 2010 Outlook Web App with certificate error

Problem

You’ve received complaints from Mac users that they then attempt to launch Exchange Server 2010’s Outlook Web App, the following prompt is displayed:

The website “webmail.someDomain.bm” requires a client certificate.

This website requires a certificate to validate your identity. Select the certificate to use when you connect to this website, and then click Continue.

com.apple.idms.appid.prd.4e37636a…

Solution

While I can’t definitively claim whether the following is the right solution but what solved this issue for my client’s MAC users was to change the EWS to allow Basic Authentication:

You will still need to manually delete the certificate on the Mac’s keychain but unlike leaving Basic Authentication off, the certificate will not come back in a few days.

Note that this contradicts the default settings as shown in the following TechNet article:

Default Settings for Exchange Virtual Directories
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg247612.aspx

Unable to map SMB Windows shares after upgrading to OS X Mavericks Version 10.9.1

Problem

You’ve recently updated your Mac OS X to Mavericks version 10.9.1:

… and noticed that if you attempt to map a SMB share on a Active Directory file server via:

smb://<ipAddress or Name>

You would receive the authentication challenge prompt:

… credentials would be accepted:

… but selecting a volume to mount would shake the window without mapping the drive and you are unable to proceed further:

Solution

A bit of searching through the internet (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5467191) indicate that the new SMB2 implementation in Mac OS X to Mavericks has compatibility issues with various file storage devices so the workaround is to map the drive as a cifs share:

cifs://<ip or name of server>

Providing Remote Desktop Web Access (RD Web Access) for Mac OS X clients

As many administrations probably know, the RDC (Remote Desktop Connection) for Mac bundled with Office 2011:

… does not support the RD Gateway Server Settings feature the Windows RDC client provides:

This has been a problem quite a few of the clients I manage who uses Remote Desktop Web Access (RD Web Access) for remote access because some of the users use Mac OS X laptops. There were a few 3rd party applications available but sometimes the added cost or having to manage another application wasn’t ideal so I’ve been extremely excited when I recently realized that Microsoft has released a new RDC client (version 8.0.3 – Updated December 11, 2013) for Macs that now support RD Gateway Server Settings:

Definitely good news for all the administrators out there who have had issues providing remote access to users that use a Mac and does not run Windows in parallel.  Now if only there was a solution for Macs to access remotely published applications through the webpage portal…