Installing and configuring Skype for Business contact request blocking

Owned by Kiss, Mate
Mar 03, 2023
2 min read

Overview

For the contact blocking functionality, an IIS module needs to be deployed alongside the usual Ethical Wall Lync components. This IIS module intercepts the contact list requests and forwards the message to the Filter for processing and decision making.

The flow below describes which components are involved when the contact list blocking functionality is used.

To see how to enable this functionality, refer to the Presence Blocking article.

Installation

  1. Force Address Book Web Query

    1. Open Skype for Business Management Shell on the Front End server

    2. Execute the following command to apply the contact request blocking for entire organization: Set-CsClientPolicy -Identity Global -AddressBookAvailability WebSearchOnly

    3. Alternatively, create a Client Policy and apply for a group of users:

      New-CsClientPolicy -Identity GroupClientPolicy  -AddressBookAvailability WebSearchOnly
      Grant-CsClientPolicy -Identity User1 -PolicyName GroupClientPolicy

  2. Install Verba Contact Request Proxy into the GAC (Global Assembly Cache) on the Front End servers (later the install will do it)

    1. Open a cmd with Administrator privileges

    2. Navigate to the "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin\" folder

    3. Type the following command:

      gacutil -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Verba\Verba.Lync.WebProxy.dll"

  3. Configure Verba Contact Request Proxy in IIS

    1. Open the IIS Manager

    2. Expand the tree list until you get the Skype for Business Server Internal Web Site\GroupExpansion

    3. Right click on the

      the Skype

      for Business Server Internal Web Site\GroupExpansion and select the Explore option

    4. In the File Explorer open the web.config file and insert the following line to the xml module tag <add name="AbsVerbaProxy" type="Verba.Lync.WebProxy.ContactRequestProxy,Verba.Lync.WebProxy, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=9e5b9fc27293e84c" />

    5. Save the web.config file

    6. Restart the IIS Server from the manager application. Right click on name of the server and press stop. When it is stopped click to the start option.

  4. Activate the Verba Ethical Wall Service in Verba and set rules for contact list blocking

Troubleshooting