Hi all,

As I'm very new with BB, please forgive my stupid basic questions...

I tried to look for the info on BB site, in the KB and technical guides, also on this forum, but I could not find the answer to some critical questions.
Hope somebody here will answer !

The situation is as follows : BES 4.1 installed on a SBS 2003 (I know this is not the best scenario, but anyway..), POP3 connector is enabled as mails are hosted at the ISP. Domain name is test.com
The idea is that 3 users that will receive a BB should get their mails and calendars on their BB.


1) I still don't know how the communication is made from the server to the bb itself.
Do I have to input the phone number of the SIM card in the BES users settings? Or does the server finds the bb thanks to its PIN ?
Or maybe do I have to set up a kind of e-mail address associated with each BB ?
It seems I need to activate the BB through enterprise activation on the BES that will send a mail ... but the BES and the BB do not know each other ! So how could the BB receive the activation mail?
Do I need to connect the BB directly to the server using the USB cable ? I suppose I don't need to, as people are supposed to get their BB activated even if they are off-site (example: the boss got his bb stolen while he was on holidays, and bought a new one ...)

2) Same question, but other way around... How a BB will find the SBS box ? Does it uses the MX address ? In that case, it means I have to host all mails directly on the SBS box, and forget about POP3, but I would like to avoid it for now...
Maybe the BB finds the SBS box by another way ? Please tell me !

3) I've seen port 3101 has to be opened on the firewall, and I suppose needs to be forwarded from the router to the server. OK. Done. But why ? Does it mean that RIM or Blackberry are still in between my server and my users blackberries ?

4) Of course, if anybody has a link to a nice tutorial or some white paper that explains all basic things to know and understand about blackberries, please transmit it !!!

5) Thanks in advance for your help !!

Thomas

Hi bohic,

1) How could the bb activate wirelessly if nowhere I had to enter any information about the BB to be activated ?
Can you explain how it works wirelessly?
Using the cable directly on the server, the BB is discovered, but when I try to assign it to a user (which status is still "initializing"), there is an error message like "the user is not yet known to the blackberry agent"...
So how can I "initialize" the user ?

2) Of course we are using exchange. The only thing is that our "external" mail ourdomain.com is not hosted the sbs box (the MX records are pointing to our ISP). Using POP3 connector, the server will connect to the ISP POP server, and dispatch all mails to exchange users.
I think is quite common scenario. At least for small businesses.

3)Clear.... for now ....

There's a KB article on it which I don't have time right now to search for.. but the BES (using the BESadmin account) has full permissions over the exchange server. To do a wireless activate then you enter a password on the BES, and then on the device enter the users email address and the same p/word which then enables the actvation process to kick off, and the device to register correctly on the BES.

Seen this one before, for some reason 4.1 seems to get confused. Give it an hour or so and see if it's resolved.

Yes would agreee is quite common config for the small business as reduces the need for anti-spam on the server itself. One of the boxes I look after has this kind of config (MX records with the ISP) and doesn't have an issue with BES.

Question for you - what country are you in and what network are you on?

Bertie,

1) OK. But how will the bb receive that e-mail in order to activate ? Does it mean that, at least at the very beginning, the BB has to be connected to the user's PC, running outlook, where this activation mail will be received, and then synchronized with the BB through the cable ?

Regarding the "initializing" status, this is for the only user I created, and the status remains the same since a few days, even after restarting the server. Of course the server has not been running the whole day, as it is only for testing, but I can assume it has been running for 5 hours since the user has been created. So I think there is another problem somewhere


I am located in Belgium. The provider is Proximus (the main operator in Belgium)...

1) No he doesn't it's wireless activation...the BES process the email on behalf of the device. You can try a wired activation which is a good fallback if the cradled activation fails..

2) Initialising - there's a good thread here on this issue
BES : User status sticks at "initializing"

however it's likely to be
(1) Sim card not correctly provisioned for BES services or
(2) No GPRS coverage or
(3) incorrect permissions...

the question as to network/provider, was I wanted to find out who was throwing you out into the world of BES without provising that much info on how it works/how to set it up..

Hey guys,
I'm really happy ... the BB is now initialized... What I missed was some misconfiiguration of permissions for the Besadmin user on the exchange server.
Deleting the user, creating it, and assigning the device worked like a charm this time !
Now wireless synch is OK, so far...
So now I could test it: calendar, tasks and contacts synchronize both ways. e-mails sent and received from the PC are synchzonized on the BB. However, I cannot send mails from the BB. There is a green checkmark after sending, but the mails are never received...
What am I missing again?

Also please tell me: the server does not have a fixed public IP address. So how does it work for the BB to find back the server in order to sychronize ? Is it possible because the server is always connected with RIM's servers, and then RIM will update the BB ?

Please forgive me... I ask lots and lots of questions. It's just because I'm discovering this new feature (yes, it is quite new in Belgium). And I think this could be interesting for my business (I'm network administrator for small businesses in my area... I'm MS systems administrator and SBS specialist, but not blackberry certified at all !!!)


Thanks so far for your great help !