Event ID 2160 after you map a user to a certificate using altSecurityIdentities in Exchange Server 2010

Original KB number:  2737853

Symptoms

Assume that you use one of the following account mapping methods together with the altSecurityIdentities attribute to map a user to a certificate in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010:

  • Public Key SHA1 Hash
  • Subject Key Identifier
  • Issuer & Serial Number
  • RFC822

In this situation, the following event is logged in the Application log. Additionally, some Exchange Server 2010 functionality may not work as expected for the user.

Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchange ADAccess
Event ID: 2160
Level: Warning
Computer: Exchange.domain.com
Description:
Process w3wp.exe (). Recipient object CN=<User>,OU=Users,OU=site,DC=lab,DC=contoso,DC=com read from DC.domain.com failed validation and will be excluded from the result set. Set event logging level for Validation category to Expert to get additional events about each failure.

Cause

This issue occurs because Exchange Server 2010 doesn't support the account mapping methods listed in the "Symptoms" section.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, use the following account mapping methods that are supported by Exchange Server 2010:

  • Subject and Issuer Name X509:<I>issuer<S>subject
  • Issuer Name X509:<I>issuer

More information

Active Directory 2008 enables alternative account mappings by using the altSecurityIdentities attribute. This attribute contains the user's certificate information that's used by the Kerberos Authentication service to identify the associated Active Directory user account.

For more information about how to map a user to a certificate, see How to map a user to a certificate by using all the methods that are available in the altSecurityIdentities attribute.