Symptoms

Task for Microsoft Exchange fails with the following error:

Provisioning request failed. Error in 'SW Managed Exchange.UpdateSMTPDomains'.
Connecting to remote server failed with the following error message : The WinRM client cannot process the request. It cannot determine the content type of the HTTP response from the destination computer. The content type is absent or invalid. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.

Error position:
At C:\Program Files\Parallels\Windows Provisioning Engine\Providers\SW Managed Exchange\Utils\ExchangeUtils.ps1:97 char:17
+ $p._session = <<<< New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri $connectionUri -Credential $credential -Authentication Kerberos -SessionOption $PSSessionOptionOverride

Type: Parallels.Wpe.PowerShell.PowerShellException.

Cause

  1. WPE server processes the request, and transfers it to the appropriate Exchange server. This request is being executed within Exchange Management shell, however, the shell is unable to connect to that server.

    When Exchange Management Console is started on WPE server, the same error message appears: 

    The WinRM client cannot process the request. It cannot determine the content type of the HTTP response from the destination computer. The content type is absent or invalid. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.

  2. Domain name of DAG cluster is resolved to certain IP address which belongs to Exchange node, but the address is not bound to "Default Web Site" on this node. Attempt to establish Powershell session from WPE server using DAG domain name ends with the same error:

    PS C:\Users\Administrator.hostedex> New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri http://dag01.contosoex.local/powershell
New-PSSession : [dag01.contosoex.local] Connecting to remote server mxap-hedag01.hostedex.local failed with the following error message : The WinRM client sent a request to an HTTP server and got a response saying the requested HTTP URL was not available. This is usually returned by a HTTP server that does not support the WS-Management protocol. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
At line:1 char:1
+ New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri ht ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (System.Manageme....RemoteRunspace:RemoteRunspace) [New-PSSession], PSRemotingTransportException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : URLNotAvailable,PSSessionOpenFailed

Resolution

  1. Make sure that it is possible to open a remote powershell session to the Exchange server from WPE server, use commandlet.

    PS> Test-WsMan

    Refer to Microsoft knowledge base for troubleshooting details.

  2. Bind all unassigned IP addresses with port 80 to "Default Web Site" on all Exchange nodes of cluster:

    Internet Information Services (IIS) > Sites > Default Web Site > Edit Bindings > Add > Type: "http", IP address: "All Unassigned", Port: "80"

Internal content