Zimbra

*iway* · #11 (**permalink**) 06-14-2009, 10:20 AM

Well, Zimbra, any info here? Will Snow Leopard be supported via Exchange Web Services (preferred!) or via a connector (not so good)?

ewilen · #12 (**permalink**) 06-14-2009, 01:03 PM

iCal and Mail already work well with Zimbra via CalDAV and IMAP/SMTP, and I doubt that Apple will remove those in Snow Leopard. In short I'm not sure why Zimbra should/would try to implement EWS. Instead, if you want to get rid of the iSync connector, wouldn't it make more sense to find a way to sync personal contacts using open, non-proprietary standards? Snow Leopard Server and Client will support CardDAV (link). This seems like the best way to go; LDAP might be an option although it's probably best used only for the GAL.

There's an RFE for CardDAV support, you might consider voting for it if you've got a vote to spare: Bug 22008 - WebDAV: Add support for CardDav

Assuming that Address Book under Snow Leopard will work with CardDAV, then if Zimbra provides CardDAV, we'll have:

For Mail, GAL access via LDAP (already works AFAIK, although I'm not sure how well it's secured)
For iCal, GAL access via WebDAV principal-property-search report (should work once 5.0.17 is released, see links above)
Address Book sync via CardDAV

It's far from clear what else Apple will or can do with Exchange via EWS, compared to what Mail/iCal already do with Zimbra.

Entourage for EWS beta allows setting Out of Office, but it doesn't handle server-based rules/filters.
Entourage for EWS syncs Notes; not clear how Mail will do this with EWS as it currently stores Notes using IMAP. As such, Mail's Notes are already perfectly compatible with Zimbra although they appear in mail folders, not as part of Zimbra's Documents.
Entourage for EWS syncs Tasks; Mail/iCal already do so with Zimbra but there are some rough edges, largely because of some quirks on Apple's implementation. See Bug 35316 - improve compatibility of Tasks with To Do's in iCal and Mail.app

mmorse · #13 (**permalink**) 06-14-2009, 02:54 PM

EWS is enticing for several reasons, but I'll wager that implementing it would be no small task. When CardDAV support gets implemented in Zimbra which looks like as soon as GnR; you could ditch or turn the iSync connector (unless using 10.5/.4 of course) into just an optional simple setup wizard for Mac 10.6 mail/cal/address.app. Let's face it: Easy, one-click setup trumps the top of most end-user needs. (Though server filter rules would be a close second, mainly because it's nice to keep everything organized the same in all clients, but hopping on the ZWC isn't complicated.)

As Elliot pointed out, what's really interesting to note is how strongly Apple is backing CardDav. It just got a lot less buzz than the EWS news purely because people can identify with those servers at their workplace - course we plan to change all that. Make it: We are changing that mindset.

Quote:

Additional new features in Snow Leopard Server include:
* the new Address Book Server, based on the CardDAV open standard, which provides a central location for users to store and access personal contacts across multiple Macs and synchronized iPhones;
* iCal® Server 2, based on the CalDAV open standard, which includes web-based calendar access and the ability to view meeting invitations and details on iPhone using iPhone OS 3.0;
Source: Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard & Address Book Server & iCal Server

(A while back I was intrigued by a few of the ideas the CalAtom/CardAtom team presented; but now that we have so many big names standing behind CalDAV, I'm glad Apple took the initiative to push for CardDav.)

Entourage on the other hand really should just go ahead and implement full CalDAV, but as a MS product clearly EWS was more important to them first - there's an RFE open for us to bend to their WebDAV variant.

I see us supporting EWS for external account aggregation and in Zimbra Desktop sometime, so the reverse (connecting to ZCS like it was EWS) isn't a complete stretch of the imagination. (Maybe an alternative to ZCO for Outlook someday.)

---High level strategy/ignore if you don't like corporate theory discussions---

If I was Apple (at war with Microsoft on both desktop and phone OS fronts) I'd kick Entourage use (which comes with Office for Mac) "down 'n out cold" by shipping iWork by default (they're already in the $50 range / could still charge for upgrades, and the Mac users they win over might offset the development cost). (I don't think they're sweating loosing much ground to Sun's OpenOffice at the moment, but fully embracing ODF can't hurt right?) Native EWS integration in mail/.cal/address.app was clearly a good first move however - since they need to say it syncs with Windows environments easily. For Mac fans, hopefully that tide will change and it'll be MS products that need to spend time focusing on compatibility with other standards rather than the other way around.

Now if Apple would just bring their hardware prices down...but I digress. (Heck that argument works two ways, lower prices can equal faster adoption, but often at the sacrifice of quality / surplus money to spend on things like operating platforms - and Apple does make excellent software.)

ewilen · #14 (**permalink**) 06-14-2009, 05:24 PM

Thanks for those thoughts, Mike. Perhaps I have a naively benign view of Apple, but if I were them I wouldn't worry about OpenOffice at all. Whether someone uses OpenOffice or iWork, that's one less person in danger of being captured by MS's strategy of bundling Entourage with Office. That person will probably turn either to Mail/iCal or to Thunderbird/Lightning, and as a result, will not view "Exchange" as the "standard" for mail and group scheduling. On this basis Apple ought to be OpenOffice-friendly.

However it doesn't seem this argument has prevailed (yet?) at Apple, since they don't support ODF in iWork as far as I know, although TextEdit will read/write .odt to some extent.

P.S. That's really good news about CardDAV! The bugzilla entry is equivocal about a target for implementation, but I see from Zimbra Product Portal that CardDAV is slotted for 6.0.1.

mmorse · #15 (**permalink**) 06-14-2009, 07:35 PM

Bingo. It's a perfect time for them to be in ally mode, especially since OpenOffice can help fight the battle on Windows platform's too.

Not to say I completely dislike MS (well, there is the Exchange rival part) - I just tend to root for the underdog, and vote for open source where possible. Plus 'how to get to the top?' proves more stimulating than 'how to stay on top?' in biz simulations anyways.

catnipper · #16 (**permalink**) 06-16-2009, 08:16 AM

Is anybody else having a problem with Zimbra iSync plugin on 10.6?

First i tried a few times to authenticate against my Zimbra account - which failed. After a few times the iSync plugin crashes completely.

Certainly there must be a 10.6 plugin soon - hopefully!

catnipper · #17 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 05:27 AM

It's me again

Currently I am the only one running on a 10.6 developer seed. But as Mac OS X 10.6 will be released in Q4 2009, this should be a pretty much final version!

As reported in the post above, the Zimbra iSync 32bit plugin is not compatible with the 10.6 64bit system.
After thinking this only affects my addressbook, I had to learn this goes much further I thought:

Looks like there is trouble with CalDAV in iCal also!

1. After I updated from 10.5.7 to 10.6 iCal seemed to work as I did setup my Zimbra calendar as CalDAV account earlier (not using the iSync plugin)
2. Read/refresh did work fine for Zimbra CalDAV
3. Zimbra CalDAV Calendar entries could not be modified nor can new entries be created
4. After deleting the CalDAV account which was setup under 10.5, I was first not able to create it again using my Zimbra credentials
5. It seems you have to be VERY patient as iCal seems to do some tests to check the type and functionality of the account provided!
6. I am still not able to create/edit entries getting an error message "Only the calendar administrator and any delegates with permission can make changes to read-only calendars..."

One issue might be that we are using a selfsigned SSL certificate, the other issue might be that Apple again did some specific CalDAV implementations for their own server

Hopefully any other Apple related sysadmins will read this and help on working out a solution for future 10.6 users!

The following may help the Zimbra guys to verify their plugin:

Code:

Process:         ZimbraHelper [388]
Path:            /Library/PreferencePanes/Zimbra.prefPane/Contents/Resources/ZimbraHelper
Identifier:      ZimbraHelper
Version:         ??? (???)
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process:  ??? [1]

Date/Time:       2009-06-16 15:27:05.318 +0200
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.6 (10A380)
Report Version:  6

Anonymous UUID:                      0128CD1C-F4C6-45DE-A4BE-E605F7183A7B

Exception Type:  EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Application Specific Information:
*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidSendPortException', reason: '[NSMachPort sendBeforeDate:] destination port invalid'
*** Call stack at first throw:
(
     0   CoreFoundation                      0x97ac474a __raiseError + 410
     1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x904050fd objc_exception_throw + 56
     2   CoreFoundation                      0x97ac4478 +[N***ception raise:format:arguments:] + 136
     3   CoreFoundation                      0x97b1043a +[N***ception raise:format:] + 58
     4   Foundation                          0x90c41767 +[NSMachPort sendBeforeTime:streamData:components:to:from:msgid:reserved:] + 476
     5   Foundation                          0x90c41580 -[NSMachPort sendBeforeTime:streamData:components:from:msgid:] + 127
     6   Foundation                          0x90c4140d -[NSConcretePortCoder sendBeforeTime:sendReplyPort:] + 246
     7   Foundation                          0x90c3e606 -[NSConnection sendInvocation:internal:] + 1649
     8   Foundation                          0x90c3d7d7 -[NSDistantObject methodSignatureForSelector:] + 735
     9   CoreFoundation                      0x97a879e0 ___forwarding___ + 320
     10  CoreFoundation                      0x97a87832 _CF_forwarding_prep_0 + 50
     11  ZimbraHelper                        0x00012fe2 main + 3132
     12  ZimbraHelper                        0x00002f8a _start + 216
     13  ZimbraHelper                        0x00002eb1 start + 41
)

...

ewilen · #18 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 10:25 AM

Are you using ZCS 5.0.11 as indicated in your info? If so I wonder if an upgrade to 5.0.16 would help.

Also according to Bug 21489 - CalDAV: Add support for calendar delegation, some of the hooks for Snow Leopard will not be included until 5.0.17.

catnipper · #19 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 01:24 PM

Forgot to update my profile: Release 5.0.13_GA_2791.SLES10_64_20090206110511 SLES10_64 NETWORK edition

It will take some time until when I will be able to make an backup/update. I was looking at one anyway :-)

Do you have any experience on running Mac OS X 10.6 with Zimbra?

At least I can confirm everything works well with iPhone/iPod touch OS 3.0 setting up an Microsoft Exchange account sitting on Zimbra (via ActiveSync)!