Topic: Horde - Funambol and exchange replacement

[daniel]

I know this topic has been discussed in part in several past threads, but I'd like to share what I've uncovered so far today.

I have a test SME 7.3 server and using the Horde Rpms from John Bennett's work.  I'm testing with kronolith (calendar) Nag (tasks) Mnemo (notes) and turba (contacts).  With one change I was able to get the funambol client plugin to work and sync outlook on a PC with Horde on SME 7.3.  Changing the realm setting in /home/httpd/html/horde/imp/config/servers.php  from @domainname.com to nothing, tags all items in the horde tables to username instead of username@domainname.com.  Then funambol can sync with the horde tables and everything shows up in both places.  Yippeee!!!!

Further reading of the servers.php.dist shows the following code:

$servers['exchange'] = array(
    'name' => 'Exchange 5.5 server',
    'server' => 'exchange.example.com',
    'hordeauth' => false,
    'protocol' => 'imap',
    'port' => 143,
    'maildomain' => '',
    'smtphost' => 'smtp.example.com',
    'realm' => '',
    'preferred' => '',
);

Would this code allow horde to emulate an exchange server or does that mean horde could attach to an exchange server running on a MS box somewhere?

Also would turning on ACL support in Horde allow for public and shared folders to follow the ACL support if SME is set as a domain controller?  This is what servers.php.dist says.

* acl: Use this if you want to use Access Control Lists (folder sharing)
 *      Set 'driver' equal to the type of ACL your server supports and
 *      'params' to an array containing any additional parameters the
 *      driver needs. Not all IMAP servers currently support this
 *      feature.
 *

It seems more and more of my people are wanting MS Outlook and I can't seem to move the tide to another direction.  Whatever I can do to make an SME server to do more things MS servers do the easier my server management functions will be.

Thanks to everyone for the great work on SME.

[Stefano]

I know this topic has been discussed in part in several past threads, but I'd like to share what I've uncovered so far today.

I have a test SME 7.3 server and using the Horde Rpms from John Bennett's work.  I'm testing with kronolith (calendar) Nag (tasks) Mnemo (notes) and turba (contacts).  With one change I was able to get the funambol client plugin to work and sync outlook on a PC with Horde on SME 7.3.  Changing the realm setting in /home/httpd/html/horde/imp/config/servers.php  from @domainname.com to nothing, tags all items in the horde tables to username instead of username@domainname.com.  Then funambol can sync with the horde tables and everything shows up in both places.  Yippeee!!!!

Hi

could you please write down an how-to to achieve it?

TIA

Ciao
Stefano

[daniel]

Let me state first, this is not for production, I'm testing and there are still many things to do yet to make it completely stable.  I don't want to write a full howto yet because I think it still needs alot of finishing.  Here's what I've done so far.

Build a stock 7.3 server

Add and update kronolith, nag, mnemo, turba, gollem, with yum to the server from the smetest repo. I also made reference to this http://wiki.horde.org/RHEL3PearHowTo?referrer=HowTo#

Verify all of that is working.

Remark out the realm line in /home/httpd/html/horde/imp/config/servers.php.  NOTE:  This should be templated or added as a DB variable before ever going into production.

Add funambol to a WinXP running Outlook (2000-2003,XP)
Configure funabol from this reference:
http://wiki.horde.org/SyncHowTo?referrer=HowTo#

Contacts are still not syncing but the Horde Tables need modification, I'm about to test this to see how well it works.  Reference here http://wiki.horde.org/TurbaOutlook2003?referrer=HowTo#

Once all this is tested and working, I'll add funambol to a smartphone device to see how well it syncs with Horde.

I hope this helps the community.  There is certainly a real need to outlook interface with  a linux based server for the business communities worldwide.  Now with MS Vista having calendar.tasks also built into it, theres even more a need for synchronization. 

[dmay]

You should raise this topic on the Developers mailing list.

Darrell

[daniel]

Good point, how might one do that?

[dmay]

Click the LISTS menu item above. Then navigate to here:

http://lists.contribs.org/mailman/listinfo/devinfo

Darrell

[mrjhb3]

http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/6749

http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/6746

John

[pwalter]

<snip>
I don't want to write a full howto yet because I think it still needs alot of finishing.
</snip>

danielr, is it time to write a howto yet? There are a lot of people interested in this.

[David Harper]

I've been testing this as well, and coincidentally the note here about the modifications to server.php should be a workaround for the last problem I've been having with regards to Funambol - see http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4772, although this refers to 7.4, as Horde 3.2 is required.

I am interested in writing a HowTo for a shared company address book, calendar, task list and note list, but we need to iron the bugs out so users do not have to fiddle with the underlying code. I'm not sure about IMAP permissions and all that, but certainly if Funambol works with Horde out of the box then you can easily have a shared company address book etc.

[mrjhb3]

I am interested in writing a HowTo for a shared company address book, calendar, task list and note list, but we need to iron the bugs out so users do not have to fiddle with the underlying code. I'm not sure about IMAP permissions and all that, but certainly if Funambol works with Horde out of the box then you can easily have a shared company address book etc.

Creating a shared anything is as easy as creating a new address book, calendar, etc. and granting permissions to all authenticated users.  Then, all authenticated users will be able to see the calendar.  If you grant them all permissions, then they can edit/modify, etc.

John

[David Harper]

In webmail, sure, but we are talking about Outlook synchronisation.

[pwalter]

I am interested in writing a HowTo for a shared company address book, calendar, task list and note list, but we need to iron the bugs out so users do not have to fiddle with the underlying code.

My primary interest is in getting to my data from my Windows Mobile smartphone, my desktop, and the web while storing the data only once in Horde. I am willing to collaborate with others on writing / testing a HowTo on getting SME 7.3, Horde, Funambol, and Outlook 2003/2007 to work together. Are you interested in / have you tried anything like that?

[David Harper]

It won't work on SME 7.3, as Horde is only at version 3.2. But Outlook synchronisation does work on 7.4 if we disable realms - I have tried it and it works seamlessly once the necessary custom template is in place.

[mrjhb3]

The realm has been configured since the early days of SME.  But since SME doesn't allow you to create an identical username for virtual domains (i.e. user1@1domain1.com and user1@domain2.com), the use of the realm really isn't needed and doesn't add any value. 

If you need to have a user1 at multiple domains, then you can create pseudonyms for
this.

So, what could be done is someone raise a bug report to either remove the realm altogether or possibly move the realm to a db setting.  But, as stated, a db setting won't add any value since we don't need a realm at all.  Regardless of what is done, the big thing will be working on the mysql changes to the horde_prefs table to remove the @domain.com entries from that table.  Then sync could work for all that want to use it.


John
John

[shawnbishop]

Hi David

You said you had this working on 7.4, could you give  a detailed How To?, or I can write the How to and test and then put it onto the Wiki, this would be very interesting for all my users, who want the calendering and address book feature discussed above

[sal1504]

David

You can add me to your list of impatient people wanting a How To. This is something I have been looking for, for a long time.

Sal

[mmccarn]

http://wiki.contribs.org/Horde_and_Funambol_Synchronization

I've been using the settings referenced above for a while.

Outlook sync works great with one caveat - "snooze" doesn't seem to sync from one Outlook to another, so if I get an alert on one system and "snooze" it for a week, I still get the alert on the other system - but this may be an oddity of my configuration (local .PST mailstore on one system, but Kerio Mailserver mailstore on the other).

Blackberry sync didn't work very well when I last tried it (about a month ago).

[pwalter]

Outlook sync works great ....

I have been testing synchronization between Horde on SME 7.4 and Outlook 2007 SP2 / Funambol Outlook connector 8.0.5, and I get somewhat different results. If you have more than about 500 Outlook contacts, Funambol gives a "server timeout" when trying to sync. If I try to sync the calendar, OutlookPlugin.exe gives a bugcheck. Tasks & Notes seem to sync without problems.

I have similar problems trying to sync Horde and Thunderbird/Sunbird using the Thunderbird Funanbol connector 0.91, and had similar issues (except they were generally worse). I posted to the funambol community site at https://core.forge.funambol.org , but so far my postings have not been responded to. I am going to cross-post to the Horde site in the hopes someone over there knows whether the problem lies in horde, or in funambol.

[Stefano]

I'm playng heavily with zarafa and its sync for windows mobile/iphone and outlook integration.. it works flawlessy, but, above all, it works out of the box

if everything will work as expected, I will replace 2 w2008 server and 1 exchange 2007 for a customer of mine..

[kevinb]

FYI

I also had issues when I tested Funambol with about 40 users and 1500 contacts:

• Server Timeout
• Un-predictable duplication of all contacts
• The Outlook and Thunderbird plugin did not allow syncing more than one account

I had these issues with the Horde server, locally installed Funambol server and Funambol's website server.

We settled on SOGo with Thunderbird and sync contacts and calendars only for $0 software cost.

I have not tested Zarafa since I did not want to change the default IMAP service and we did not want to buy Outlook clients and connectors.

Kevin

[pwalter]

We settled on SOGo with Thunderbird and sync contacts and calendars only for $0 software cost.

What's SOGo ?

[Stefano]

We settled on SOGo with Thunderbird and sync contacts and calendars only for $0 software cost.

so, are you using Sogo on SME 8.b4? can you share an howto?

Thank you

[Stefano]

What's SOGo ?

Sogo

[pwalter]

I am going to cross-post to the Horde site in the hopes someone over there knows whether the problem lies in horde, or in funambol.

Well, I already got some answers from sync@lists.horde.org. In summary:
http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/8474 - All day events cause crash with Funambol outlook connector. This problem is fixed in horde 3.3.5.
http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/8386 - Mapping is broken (duplicate records / records undeleted). This problem was fixed in horde 3.3.6 (as yet unreleased)

So, it appears that the horde<-->funambol connection is not yet ready for prime time. I will wait until SME updates to horde 3.3.6 before testing again.

[kevinb]

so, are you using Sogo on SME 8.b4? can you share an howto?

At the time I installed this SOGo required a LDAP server to authenticate to. The LDAP beta contrib did work. SOGo does some complicated redirection of http requests in order to distribute load and I never got this figured out on SME.

I ended up running a second Centos5 server with SOGo, LDAP and Postgresql. IMAP stays on SME and SOGo points to it.

I have been holding out for the LDAP contrib to get incorporated into SME before I write a How To. Once I figure out how to handle the redirection on SME, LDAP auth is incorporated into SME then SOGo will be ready to be a contrib.

I did post a how to on the forums awhile back on this.

Kevin

[Stefano]

At the time I installed this SOGo required a LDAP server to authenticate to. The LDAP beta contrib did work. SOGo does some complicated redirection of http requests in order to distribute load and I never got this figured out on SME.

I ended up running a second Centos5 server with SOGo, LDAP and Postgresql. IMAP stays on SME and SOGo points to it.

I have been holding out for the LDAP contrib to get incorporated into SME before I write a How To. Once I figure out how to handle the redirection on SME, LDAP auth is incorporated into SME then SOGo will be ready to be a contrib.

I did post a how to on the forums awhile back on this.

Kevin

ok, you are right, now I remember..

about http requests redirection, how does it works? I mean: if there are conf files to study, we could create the required fragments

[kevinb]

I'll get the SOGo.conf file posted here this weekend.

SOGo can use a mysql database (posgresql is default).

The latest version supports authentication via SQL as well as LDAP.

Kevin

[kevinb]

Here is the sogo.conf file from /etc/httpd/conf.d/. Do you need any other conf files as well (proxy_ajp.conf ssl.conf  welcome.conf)?

Alias /sogo.woa/WebServerResources/ \
      /usr/GNUstep/System/Library/SOGo/WebServerResources/
Alias /SOGo.woa/WebServerResources/ \
      /usr/GNUstep/System/Library/SOGo/WebServerResources/
Alias /SOGO.woa/WebServerResources/ \
      /usr/GNUstep/System/Library/SOGo/WebServerResources/
<LocationMatch "^/SOGo/so/ControlPanel/Products/.*UI/Resources/.*jpg">
  SetHandler default-handler
</LocationMatch>
<LocationMatch "^/SOGo/so/ControlPanel/Products/.*UI/Resources/.*png">
  SetHandler default-handler
</LocationMatch>
<LocationMatch "^/SOGo/so/ControlPanel/Products/.*UI/Resources/.*gif">
  SetHandler default-handler
</LocationMatch>
<LocationMatch "^/SOGo/so/ControlPanel/Products/.*UI/Resources/.*css">
  SetHandler default-handler
</LocationMatch>
<LocationMatch "^/SOGo/so/ControlPanel/Products/.*UI/Resources/.*js">
  SetHandler default-handler
</LocationMatch>
AliasMatch /SOGo/so/ControlPanel/Products/(.*)/Resources/(.*) \
           /usr/GNUstep/System/Library/SOGo/$1.SOGo/Resources/$2
<Proxy balancer://sogocluster>
  BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:20000 retry=1 max=1 timeout=120
# If you enable those, don't forget the enable the spawning of multiple SOGo
# processes. With Redhat-based distributions, this is done by setting the
# "PREFORK" variable in /etc/sysconfig/sogo to the amount of processes as
# value.
#   BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:20001 retry=1 max=1 timeout=120
#   BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:20002 retry=1 max=1 timeout=120
  ProxySet lbmethod=byrequests maxattempts=1
</Proxy>
SetEnv proxy-nokeepalive 1
ProxyRequests Off
ProxyPass /SOGo balancer://sogocluster/SOGo

[arnoldob]

Well, I already got some answers from sync@lists.horde.org. In summary:
http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/8474 - All day events cause crash with Funambol outlook connector. This problem is fixed in horde 3.3.5.
http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/8386 - Mapping is broken (duplicate records / records undeleted). This problem was fixed in horde 3.3.6 (as yet unreleased)

So, it appears that the horde<-->funambol connection is not yet ready for prime time. I will wait until SME updates to horde 3.3.6 before testing again.

I followed the HowTo here: http://wiki.contribs.org/Horde_and_Funambol_Synchronization. Horde 3.3.6 is out in the SME test repo, I updated without ill effects, also installed kronolith, nag and mnemo. I can get Outlook sync working, at least it runs without an error. Should I see the contacts in my horde addressbook? 

Funambol is also available in the iTunes store for free. But it doesn't work well on my iPhone. It gets a "server not found please check settings" message using the same address that works in the Outlook Funambol. I'm using a SME 7.4 that's pretty much otherwise stock. Any ideas?

[daniel]

I was able to get calendar and tasks to sync with outlook and Horde, but contacts originating from outlook would never get moved to Horde databases.  Horde contacts would move to outlook.  Everything I could find in the logs suggested funambol worked correctly.  I gave up on trying to make it work and moved on to testing other exchange like applications.  There was an issue with a horde calendar item being set to reoccur at a certain date and time, outlook would show the reoccurance as all day, or vice versa.  I don't remember the exact issue on the calendar item.

[mrjhb3]

Syncing horde with SME 7 probably won't give you what you want.  The syncing issue with using realms is supposed to be fixed in horde 3.3.8  All of those horde components have been updated for SME8 and should be in the smetest repo.  They were not updated for sme7.  I would test syncing on 8.  There was a bug opened for syncing on sme7, and AFAIK only one person really followed up with the horde developers.  So, it didn't really seem like a big issue for the majority of people stating that they were having problems since they didn't followup.

John

[arnoldob]

Hey Daniel,

What other "exchange like application" did you settle on?

[daniel]

Didn't settle on anything yet, but have tested SOGo, Zarafa, SmarterMail, MailTraq, MailSite, hosted Rackspace Exchange.  Each have pluses and minuses for what I'm looking for. 

Some of these run on windows server, some on linux.  The linux platforms for testing are SME8b5.  My personal like is Zarafa over SOGo for the web interface.  The most difficult thing about all this is evaluating one product that will sync with blackberry, smartphone, funambol, outlook, and now Ipad.

If people are interested I can post results when I make a final decision later next month.

[smiit]

I've been having very good results with the professional version of GroupOffice:

http://www.group-office.com/

The developer is active in the support forums and ticket requests and the software is updated regularly.  Price was reasonable compared to MS licenses.

I'm running it on a separate SME8 test server to handle calendar/contacts/tasks with the mail staying on a production 7.5 server.  Syncs well with latest beta Funambol in Thunderbird 3.  Syncs on iPhone, iPad etc. as an Exchange Server (turn mail off).  Windows smartphones work great but haven't tested Blackberry extensively - I think that needs Funambol app on phone.

The most functionality comes from using the product's web interface.  Some things don't seem to be available in Thunderbird (busy/free and calender overlay views) and Apple devices have trouble with .ics files.

But so far it's been the easiest groupware solution to maintain, get productive results out of and is visually pleasing and intuitive to end users.

Your mileage may vary!

[cactus]

If people are interested I can post results when I make a final decision later next month.

Please do so! I am interested in a comparison, especially pros and cons for one to the other.

[kevinb]

If people are interested I can post results when I make a final decision later next month.

I am interested too. We settled on SOGo because we wanted to replace Outlook as well as Exchange but I am interested in what others have concluded.

[byte]

So far, I'm swinging to Zarafa, it seems to be a more mature and plus the zarafa outlook client is a major plus considering my users wishes to stick with LookOut! another big plus is the zarafa outlook client works with outlook 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007 (considering we still use Outlook 2000 )

Only potential downside with zarafa is it uses its own storage engine.

I think SOGo is a potential great up and coming groupware but still has a way to go considering it doesn't really have a smooth outlook client and lets be honest all normal users prefer the MS way regardless of how much we try to insist on using better designed products

[daniel]

I'm also thought Zarafa was a more mature business level product.  However I still have a couple issues that I cannot make work.  1.  Could not get webcal to work so I could connect ipad/ipod to read user calendars.  2.  Blackberry Enterprise Service needs an outlook workstation to manage it and it needs an older version of BES 4.1.6.  I haven't even attempted that setup yet 3.  Make all data transfers encrypted for security.    I loved the fact that Zarafa in ldap mode worked fluidly wiht SME 8b5, but I had issues when it came to setting authentications in outlook.  Moved Zarafa to db mode and using the smeserver-zarafa control panel, made everything work correctly.   If I could easily solve those three issues I would probably use Zarafa on SME8b5 and remove Horde for a single server approach.   Zarafa had a good MS Outlook connecter as well.  Once we get a SME8 Release Candidate I'll be able to move it into production environments for some real load tests.

I also did a quick look at group-office.  In this environment, everyone here thinks Outlook is the only way to manage themselves along with all the smart phone syncs to outlook.  Its so entrenched I couldn't handle a webmail package that didn't to a strong degree emulate and show the same data as outlook on the PC level. 

As to looking at exchange alternatives in a windows environment, I've looked at SmarterMail, Mail Traq, and now Mailsite Fusion.  Each have certain difficulties in setting up and none of them are what I would consider the perfect exchange replacement.  Of course they also have a pricetag to them as well, anywhere from $500-$2000 depending on what features I happen to need for my system.  If I do decide to go with a windows based mail package, I will be using VMware to run it over top of SME Server.  BTW- VMWare is a great product for SME, I'm running 3 servers on top of SME and everything runs with great performance.

The final alternative I've looked at is having my exchange server hosted for a monthly fee.  I can get everything I need for about $200 a month with all the smartphone/blackberry sync options as well.   I'm willing to help test and mature some of these exchange like packages when I get free time if some others that are more knowledgeable about linux applications can make suggestions and documentations for the SME Groups.