Project Center shows No projects when accessing externally

[Kevin]

When I try to view the Project Center from an extranet running Project Web
Access, it shows "Loading Data" and then indicates that I have "No projects
to display". When I view the same internally, I get the projects. This is
all under the administrator account so I doubt this is a permissions issue.



I am running Office Project Server 2003 SP1 on SBS 2003 Premium SP1 (still
using ISA 2000 SP2 FP1) with SQL 2000 SP4. Project Web Access is running on
IIS6's Default Website and has an extranet address of
https://extranet.mydomain.com/ProjectServer. A Sharepoint site with the
Project Template applied is running on a different virtual server with a
different internal IP address (another address bound to the Internal adapter
of the SBS system) and has an extranet address of
https://project.mydomain.com:443. As mentioned, it works internally but
when I try to access externally, it does not. There are no notable errors
in the event log. Here's some config information from PWA Admin section:



Server Configuration: Server intranet address =
http://myserver/ProjectServer

Server Configuration: Server Extranet address =
https://extranet.mydomain.com/ProjectServer



Manage Windows Sharepoint Services: SharePoint Central Administration URL:
http://myserver:27960

Manage Windows Sharepoint Services: Create a site under this Sharepoint URL:
http://project.mydomain.com:80/sites

Manage Windows Sharepoint Services: Sharepoint Extranet Address:
https://project.mydomain.com:443



A few other things that might be of interest:



* If I try to set the "Manage Windows Sharepoint Services: Create a site
under this Sharepoint URL" option to https://project.mydomain.com:443/sites
I get the warning that the "servername in the Sharepoint Central
Administration URL is different from the server name in the URL under which
project sites will be created." and I click OK to save anyway. I then get
the error "The server instance specified was not found". I don't think this
needs to be accessible externally anyway but it does affect the site
addresses for each of the project sites.



* I can externally access the projects by explicit URL. For example
https://project.mydomain.com/sites/ProjectServer_121.



I can view both the PWA site and the Sharepoint Site for projects externally
(via https) but whatever links the two together to provide the Project
Center functionality doesn't work.



Any help is appreciated.



Kevin

 

[FaisalM]

Kevin,

The last para in your posting says:

" I can view both the PWA site and the Sharepoint Site for projects externally
(via https) but whatever links the two together to provide the Project
Center functionality doesn't work."

Check the redirector settings in ISA under publishing. I think there is an
option with feature pack which allows you to replace strings etc in a url.
(Don't remember it exactly). Try to add an entry in redirector (publishing)
to replace any internal server address like http://servername:27960 with
external FQDN address.

May be that would help.

FaisalM
http://www.FaisalMasood.com/

 

[Kevin]

Thanks for your reply. The ISA feature is called Link Translation and that
is a good suggestion which I will follow up on. I'm curious about the URL
though. Would it likely be for WSS; PWA; or Sharepoint Central Admin? The
answer will affect what URL I put into the link translator.

Also, if there was some request for a NetBIOS name, would it not show up in
an IIS log?

Thanks again.

Kevin

 

[FaisalM]

Kevin,

Yes its 'Link Translation'.

As for URL is concerned I'd say put both WSS & PWA (not WSS Central Admin
URL) in 'Link Translation'. In this way if any page contains internal URL
references, would automatically be translated to external URL for external
users.

Regarding NETBIOS not showing in IIS logs..... it could be due to any of
these reasons.

a. NETBIOS might've been blocked at the external user site/firewall or some
where in the middle by routers/ firewall (who are between the external user &
your project server)

b. ISA Firewall blocking NETBIOS requests. (In this case IIS logs won't show
you any sign of it. Rather check ISA logs)

Let me know if that helps.

FaisalM
http://www.FaisalMasood.com/

 

[Kevin]

I've solved the problem.

After pouring through the firewall logs from external requests and comparing
to the IIS logs when requests are made internally, I noticed that calls are
made to the MSADC virtual directory on the PWA host virtual server. Reading
through some Project Server docs, this is necessary for the Project Data
Service (PDS) to function correctly. I had not included this in my web
publishing rule for Project Server so when the request came through the
client ActiveX controls to run the msadcs.dll file from the MSADC virtual
directory, it was blocked. The fix in this case is to add the following
path to your web publishing rule:

/msadc/msadcs.dll/*

Hope this helps someone else who's had this issue.

Kevin

 

[FaisalM]

Good to hear that.

Faisal

I've solved the problem.

After pouring through the firewall logs from external requests and comparing
to the IIS logs when requests are made internally, I noticed that calls are
made to the MSADC virtual directory on the PWA host virtual server. Reading
through some Project Server docs, this is necessary for the Project Data
Service (PDS) to function correctly. I had not included this in my web
publishing rule for Project Server so when the request came through the
client ActiveX controls to run the msadcs.dll file from the MSADC virtual
directory, it was blocked. The fix in this case is to add the following
path to your web publishing rule:

/msadc/msadcs.dll/*

Hope this helps someone else who's had this issue.

Kevin

 

[Haim Beyhan]

I had the same problem and it's solved now.
Thanks to Kevin.


Haim