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Publish DirectAccess with Forefront TMG 2010
DirectAccess is a compelling remote access solution that provides seamless and transparent, always-on, bi-directional remote corporate network connectivity for managed Windows clients. In Windows Server 2008 R2 and Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) 2010, the DirectAccess server had to be configured with two network adapters, with the external network interface configured with two consecutive public IPv4 addresses. Many security engineers were understandably concerned about exposing a domain-joined Windows server directly to the public Internet, which limited the adoption of the technology. Beginning with Windows Server 2012, DirectAccess is integrated in to the operating system and provides more flexible network configuration. DirectAccess can now be deployed behind an existing edge security solution performing NAT, and even supports single-NIC configuration.
The Forefront TMG 2010 firewall is an excellent choice to provide essential protection for the DirectAccess workload. When DirectAccess is deployed behind a NAT device, the only firewall port that needs to be opened is TCP port 443 (HTTPS).
When publishing DirectAccess with TMG, it is important to use a server publishing rule and not a web publishing rule. To publish DirectAccess, open the Forefront TMG 2010 management console, right-click Firewall Policy in the navigation tree, and then choose New Non-Web Server Publishing Rule.
Provide a descriptive name for the rule, enter the IP address of the DirectAccess server, choose HTTPS Server for the protocol, and then select the network interface on which to listen for these requests.
To ensure the proper operation of Receive Side Scaling (RSS) on the DirectAccess server, it is recommended that the server be configured to use TMG as its default gateway and to configure the publishing rule on TMG using the option Requests appear to come from the original client.
Also, TMG does not support load balancing for server publishing rules, so it is not possible to deliver traffic to multiple back end servers using TMG. For high availability and to provide for scalability, it is recommended to configure load balancing for DirectAccess using NLB or an external load balancer (recommended) and publish the virtual IP address (VIP) using the steps described above.
To learn more about DirectAccess, visit http://directaccess.richardhicks.com/
Configuring Forefront TMG 2010 HTTPS Inspection Inclusion List
When HTTPS inspection is configured and enabled on a Forefront TMG 2010 firewall, the administrator has the option to define web sites to exclude from HTTPS inspection. This may be required for a variety of reasons. For example, an administrator may need to exclude certain destinations to address privacy concerns, or perhaps HTTPS inspection breaks an application that uses SSL to tunnel non-HTTP protocols. All HTTPS web sites are inspected except for those sites defined as Destination Exceptions.
Beginning with Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Forefront TMG 2010, administrators can now define an explicit inclusion list for HTTPS inspection. Sites included on this list will be subject to HTTPS inspection, while all other destinations will be excluded. To define an HTTPS inspection inclusion list, create a Domain Name Set and populate it with those destinations for which you explicitly want to enforce HTTPS inspection.
After saving and applying the configuration, copy this VBScript file to the TMG firewall, then open an elevated command prompt and type the following command:
cscript.exe ConfigureHTTPSiInclusionList.vbs <DomainNameSetName>
Substitute <DomainNameSetName> in the command above with the name of the Domain Name Set created earlier. Once configured, the Destination Exceptions tab of the HTTPS Outbound Inspection properties will be greyed out, and only those sites included in the Domain Name Set defined as the HTTPS inspection inclusion list will be subject to HTTPS inspection. All other destinations will be excluded. You can still define Source Exceptions as needed, however.
Only one Domain Name Set can be specified as the HTTPS inspection inclusion list. Running the command without parameters removes any configured inclusion list and returns HTTPS inspection back to its original state.
For more information regarding HTTPS inspection inclusion lists, refer to KB2619986.
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