Adding links to a Portal that point outside (eg Google)

I had a need recently to add links to external sites eg Google onto a UAG portal. I thought it was obvious and it was just me, its really not...

Thanks to Ran who answered with a solution

http://bit.ly/9mCwQ8 {social.technet.microsoft.com}

This can also be used to link between UAG trunks manually

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Follow these steps:

1. Add a new application to your portal trunk, using the type Other Web App (portal hostname)

2. On the Web Servers step of the Add Application Wizard, in the Addresses list, enter a dummy hostname address

3. On the Portal Link step of the wizard, in the Application URL, delete the automatically created URL and instead enter the actual URL of the external site to which you want to direct your users.

4. Choose YES on the "The application URL is not valid. Illegal server address" error message.

5. Complete the wizard and activate the configuration

Some notes:

- You will get some activation warning messages about the dummy server address you entered in step 2 above not being resolvable.

- You probably should select the option to open this site in a new browser window, otherwise, when accessed, the site will be contained in a frame within the UAG portal, and your users will get a Security Warning if the external application link points to an HTTP address, while your portal is accessed via HTTPS.

HTH,

-Ran