Topic: Microsoft Exchange Server Linux Replacement

[edform]

Most likely as Horde is a (web)interface to a mail/groupware server just like thunderbird or outlook can be. So they are there already. I even think that writing a application that scrapes web interfaces is a very bad thing, one flaw or code change could render your application useless. Talk to the groupware server directly, they communicate in clearly outlined protocols (some more standard and general than others, I know).

Perhaps your money is better spent on consultancy to fix the hurdles you are facing:

• Hire a grpahic webdesigner to design a template for Horde which looks better, serve that back to the community I think a lot of people would be thankfull for your well spent money.
• Donate to the dynamic version of Horde as they are developing such a feature AFAIK: http://www.horde.org/dimp/

Undoubtetly there are even more ways to spent your bucks and have a groupware solution more to your liking.

The current version of Horde has  a raft of silly problems that the last version didn't have - it won't run properly in kiosk-mode opera, or any setup of Firefox - the shared calender switching function doesn't work. When you date-arrow forward in Work-week view you can arrow back to this week, but not back further to previous weeks: you have to use 'goto' to get to an earlier date and then revert to work-week view. And calendar behaviour when a recurring all day event and an early morning appointment are made on the same day is really weird. I'm sure they'll sort it out but I've got one client who is tearing his hair out with it.

Ed Form

[edform]

I was also looking for  a replacement...

Look at Kerio Mail Server or DeskNow...

I've spent the last two days getting Kerio to run on my test box and it's really rather nice. It's completely self-contained and wants to use ports 25, 80,110, 119, 143, 389, 443, 465, 563, 636 and 995 so I used the Service Control contrib to disable all the SME services involved and simply loaded Kerio from its rpm. Putting the server start command in /etc/rc.d/rc.local got it restarting after reboots and I've now populated it with a few big email stores and it works well.

One useful difference from Zarafa is that the webmail interface text is all stored in an editable text file [/opt/kerio/mailserver/translations/webmail/*.def - chose the one that speaks the same language as you] so the whole thing can be customised.

I'm going to start a new thread to seek some advice on this approach of getting rid of all the standard SME services that conflict with the functions of a preferred application because it might open the door to using some potentially nice software.

Ed Form

[shawnbishop]

I have a feeling this is going to be come quite a well commented and used thread...I will install Kerio today as see how is goes..

[Teviot]

Doesn't Kerio and some of these other suggestions use IMAP?  Surely there is something out there that use the same ports and protocol as Exchange and Outlook?

Unless I'm mistaken Exchange and outlook use port 80 with some sort of coding with allows it to go though any port blocking that any ISP might put on.

[edform]

Doesn't Kerio and some of these other suggestions use IMAP?  Surely there is something out there that use the same ports and protocol as Exchange and Outlook?

Unless I'm mistaken Exchange and outlook use port 80 with some sort of coding with allows it to go though any port blocking that any ISP might put on.

Kerio has inbuilt support for Outlook. I'm looking at other software as well because I try really hard not to pay for software on servers - except when I call in support people to do the hard bits.

Ed Form

[si_blakely]

The OpenChange project (in conjunction with the Samba team) is developing the protocols and infrastructure to allow a pure opensource Exchange replacement. The problem has not been the back-end systems, but the fact that the Exchange client/server protocols were not documented/understood, and anyone who actually reverse-engineered the protocols to do so was justifiably charging for the implementation (and they were focussed on the Outlook/MAPI client end of things).

I suspect that as the Exchange server protocols get developed, a protocol layer mapping Exchange protocols to IMAP/ICAL/VCARD/LDAP servers will pop up, allowing native Outlook access to open-source servers. This will rely on Samba4, which will provide the Active Directory equivalent, and will hopefully standardise LDAP directory structure for groupware.

For me, the issue is integration. I have OpenXchange running on my SME server, which works OK. But the real winning feature for me was the reconfiguring of LDAP to support authentication and address books (personal and global). This allows Thunderbird and Horde (read-only) access to the global address book, and I use OpenXchange or KDE-PIM to manage the address book. I even dump the LDAP addresses into Spamassassin for whitelisting. The only feature I really miss is SIEVE support in DoveCot.

But if I decided to use a different groupware server, I may lose the LDAP functionality or structure, and I would be upset about that.

Si

[kevinb]

Just a quick comment.....

We have been testing SOGo as an Exchange/Outlook replacement and have been very impressed. It uses a webmail client as well as Thunderbird/Lightning with contact and calendar sharing and ACL's.

I would think it could be incorporated into SME.

Kevin

[mdo]

I have become aware of SOGo only recently but have started reading and I would be very interested in trying to integrate this into SME.
We think their approach for Thunderbird/Lightning is much better than the Zarafa (Outlook) way to go.
Could you share your steps so far and maybe we can start a larger group of interested users to discuss?
Thanks, Michael

[kevinb]

Hello Michael,

To me it looks like SOGo on SME 8 might be an overall better combination than Horde on SME and may be the best replacement for Exchange/Outlook.

I have been successful running SME 7.4 with the LDAP contrib and SOGo on it's own Centos 5.3 server authenticating against SME LDAP. My steps are here http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,44420.0.html. Please contact me if there are any problems or questions.

I believe there may be a way to build SOGo on Centos 4.X and thus install on SME 7.4. It may be simpler to wait on SME 8 RC. There is a Mysql option for SOGo too.

My attempt at a local install on SME 8 was not successful. It believe it is an Apache http.conf redirection issue.

Kevin

[girkers]

I like this idea, just last week I finally got a phone with Windows Mobile on it and got an older version of funambol to work on it to connect to my SME 7.4 server.

I would really like to see this work on a block standard SME server, even if it is version 8, as to position SME as a "true" alternative to Windows Server, this functionality is a must. I do however also appreciate the limited resources available to the project so using and integrating a ready made product would make sense, but then again the work required to combine this may outway the benefits. All would depend on priorities.