Setting up the Exchange Web Service for Exchange Server crawlers

To obtain the list of folders, items, and item elements to be crawled, the Exchange Server crawler uses the Exchange Web Service (EWS) SOAP protocol. When the Exchange Server Client Access Server is installed on a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, 2010, 2013, or 2016 server, the EWS component is installed automatically. Exchange 2016 is supported in fixpack 11.0.2.3 and later.

About this task

To access user mailboxes, the Exchange Server crawler must be able to impersonate other users. To configure this support, you must prepare one user who has Impersonation Rights and use this user account when you configure the Exchange Server crawler.

Procedure

To set up the EWS for the Exchange Server crawler:

  1. Verify that the EWS is installed on the Exchange Server server by going to the EWS site and confirming that the WSDL of the EWS is shown.
    The default URL is https://hostname/EWS/ExchangeService.asmx, where hostname is the host name of the Exchange Server server.
  2. Set up the EWS:
    • On an Exchange Server 2007 server, assign two types of permissions, ms-Exch-EPI-Impersonation and ms-Exch-EPI-May-Impersonate. For more information, see Configuring Exchange Impersonation (Exchange Web Services) on the Microsoft MSDN site.
    • On an Exchange Server 2010, 2013, and 2016 server:
      1. For Exchange Server 2010, open the Outlook Web App (OWA) with an Administrator account, click Options-> See All Options-> Manage your organization-> Roles & Auditing-> Administrator Roles.

        For Exchange Server 2013 and 2016, use the Exchange Admin Center instead of OWA to create a new role.

      2. Click New, set the value of the Name field by using Impersonation Management, and select ApplicationImpersonation as the value for the Roles field. In the Members field, select the user account that the Exchange Server crawler is to use when accessing the Exchange Server server.