Workspace ONE Notebook - Invalid Credentials?

[anma_ek]

Hello Community, 

I was wondering if anyone had any luck with deploying the Workspace ONE Notebook app from VMWare recently. 

There was one other forum post here where the only "solution" was that the user who had the problem upgraded from exchange2010 to 2016 in their infrastructure. 

We already use Exchange2016, but I haven't had any luck signing into the app to synchronize notes and tasks. The problem occurs on iOS and Android both. 

The App always tells me of invalid credentials, however I know that they are correct. I have the app assignment configured for basic authentication, as our EWS requires. Our EWS URL is reachable externally and we are not tunneling the notebook app (however, it didn't work when we tried with tunneling enabled either). 

We tried some third party apps to test our EWS configuration and were able to synchronize notes and tasks, which leads me to think there must be some error in the app configuration. 

Did anyone have that same problem and has some pointers where I could look? 

Thanks! 

[dawid_dudek]

Hi,

I don't want to be unpolite, but did you check all requirements to deploy Workspace ONEA Notebook? Maybe there is some connectivity issuse or type of authentications methods? Or iOS/ Android version?

The access and authentication requirements are :

• Access to the endpoint Exchange Web Services is required. The application must access the EWS URL either directly or through the Secure Email Gateway or VMware Tunnel Per-App VPN.
• Notebook supports Exchange Server 2010 and later versions.
• Basic and NTLM authentication are supported.
• The Notebook application requires HTTPS protocol and port 443 to access EWS.

Console Requirements:

Workspace ONE UEM console 9.3 and later.

Supported Agent:

• VMware Workspace ONE
• VMware Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub

Supported Mobile Operating Systems - iOS 10 and later Android 5.1 and later

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workspace-ONE-UEM/services/Notebook_Admin_Doc/GUID-081BF310-CDD8-4...

Have a nice day,
Dawid

[anma_ek · Accepted solution]

Hello Dawid, 

not unpolite at all, and you proved to have the right of it. It was indeed a (couple of) misconfigurations on our end. 

If anyone ends up having the same issue, here is how we got it to work: 

1. We ended up tunneling the app, but the VMWare-Tunnel did not connect properly, which wasn't really noticeable at first glance. As soon as this problem was fixed, Android devices were able to sync with EWS. 

2. Apple devices still did not work, the problem was that our certificate was not complying with Apple's standards for TLS certificates. This is an iOS restriction only, that's why it worked on Android. 

iOS devices seemingly accept the certificate anyway, but will then refuse to authenticate to our resources. It was only in the log files for notebook (Accessible via Send Feedback) that I could see the certificate problem. 

Here is the apple resource for anyone interested: 

Requirements for trusted certificates in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15 - Apple Support

[AlexanderMuc]

Hi,

you should not evaluate WS1 Notebook further or plan a rollout as the solution has been discontinued and support ends in February 2024.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/93850

[anma_ek]

Hello Alexander, 

thank you for the heads up - this has been news to me. 

This would have been valuable information before all the troubleshooting, I guess..

I've just opened a support request to find out if there's a successor planned or if the existing functionality will be rolled into boxer. 

Regards