Zimbra + Funambol Sync4j Code

[ojehle]

Originally Posted by hillman

3. Port to Funambol v6. This will be the biggest task, requiring a thorough understanding of both projects

let me know if you begin there.... i was beginning already, but due to missing documentation of funambol i stopped in the middle.

[SpEnTBoY]

hillman, others,

Well at least someone is putting their money where their mouth is so to speak. I've heard rumors and seen threads regarding this initiative but nothing has ever come to fruition.

Your work is greatly appreciated!! although I am also but a hack ;-) ... I could still help with testing and debugging (systematic type stuff) and possibly _some_ coding .... although I'm really more of a scripter (PERL, shells etc).

If I can help remove some of the monotonous tasks so you can focus more on the larger stuff I'd be more than willing to give whatever spare cycles I have. Either way I just dont want this work to die lol

[hillman]

Although I haven't finished getting calendaring to sync properly, I thought I'd put a copy of what I have so far for anyone desperate to play with this stuff.

I have only been testing so far with a WM2003 device, using the Funambol SyncML plugin for WM2003 (available from their sourceforge site). It is labeled as "experimental", so take that for what it's worth.

Contact syncing seems to be working in both directions - new contacts in Zimbra properly get brought across to my PDA, and if I edit a contact on my PDA, the change gets reflected back into Zimbra next time I sync. I haven't played around with any of the extra fields -- I'm just using name and e-mail address.

Calendaring syncing worked ONE WAY -- from Zimbra down to the PDA. ALL events get sync'd - from every calendar that you own. No differentiation is made on the PDA, so they just all show up together. However, syncing a meeting created on the PDA from the PDA back to Zimbra currently doesn't work. I also haven't tried modifying an imported meeting on the PDA and syncing that back.

The calendar syncing is still very much broken. Each time you try to sync, it will, after a very lengthy comparison process, send the entire set of events down, creating duplicates (and then triplicates, quad, etc) on your PDA.

This code is Highly experimental and should be considered 'Alpha' at best. Don't use the calendaring to do anything but help work on the software (if you're so inclined ). It must also be used with the old Sync4j server, NOT the Funambol v3 or v6 servers. As I mentioned in a previous post, porting to the new server comes after getting the code to work in the first place.

Anyway, here's the link to what I've got so far - it includes both the s4j module and the source. The /docs directory contains a file explaining how to add the connector into the Sync4j server. I have only used it with the HSQLDB "memory based" database

http://www.sfu.ca/~hillman/ZimbraSync4j.tar.gz

[hillman]

After playing with my own configuration, I realize I'm actually somewhat closer to a working prototype than I thought.

First, when configuring the SyncML client, set your username to the full account on the server - i.e. "user@zimbra.foo.com", rather than just "user". This will ensure that you have permission to create and modify events on the server.

Second, when doing the initial sync, start with a 'recover' operation if at all possible. The Funambol SyncML client for WM2003 supports this - I'll try others. The 'recover' operation instructs the client to discard everything it has and grab everything from the server. This will prevent it from trying to match up what's already on your PDA and will ensure that the client and server are in sync to start with. After that, 'fast' syncs seem to work reasonably well.

I'm still having a problem with timezones though - when you change the time of an event on your PDA, it will treat the new time as a GMT time, usually resulting in your meeting moving to late night/early morning on the server.

So my prior warning about it being "highly" experimental is perhaps a bit harsh - it's just "experimental". If you have the inclination, and have a good backup of your calendar data, feel free to try it out with other PDAs. I would try it on a test account first though

[SpEnTBoY]

I plan on testing this very soon ... so far right now I only have the funambol server installed so I'll need to snag the sync4j stuff and hammer around with this. Either way the work is seriously appreciated!!!

[resol]

Great news! I would really like to see zimbra having syncml capabilities some day!
Please keep on working on that!

[DenRaf]

Can someone post here what is added in the database when configuring the ZimbraContactSyncSource and ZimbraCalendarSyncSource?

I've got everything working, but I just can't get my admin console to work properly.

Thx in advance.

[hillman]

Are you using the right version of the admin tool? The Funambol version won't work - you have to download the sync4j Admin tool from their forge site.

If you're running that version and it still won't work, there are two values that need to be inserted into a table, and two xml files that must be set up.

I think there are three key values that it inserts. The definitions for ical and vcard, and a URL. I think the URL may go into a file though, rather than into the DB, because I can't find it in any of my tables. Here's the inserts for the first two:

INSERT INTO SYNC4J_SYNC_SOURCE VALUES('ical','zimbra-1.0/zimbra-1.0/zimbra-calendar-1.0/iCal.xml','iCal','zimbra-calendar-1.0')
INSERT INTO SYNC4J_SYNC_SOURCE VALUES('vcard','zimbra-1.0/zimbra-1.0/zimbra-contact-1.0/vCard.xml','vCard','zimbra-contact-1.0')

The xml files are: Sync4j/server/config/zimbra-1.0/zimbra-1.0/zimbra-calendar-1.0/iCal.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<java version="1.4.2_08" class="java.beans.XMLDecoder"> 
 <object class="sync4j.zimbra.engine.source.ZimbraCalendarSyncSource"> 
  <void property="encode"> 
   <boolean>false</boolean> 
  </void> 
  <void property="info"> 
   <object class="sync4j.framework.engine.source.SyncSourceInfo"> 
    <void property="supportedTypes"> 
     <array class="sync4j.framework.engine.source.ContentType" length="1"> 
      <void index="0"> 
       <object class="sync4j.framework.engine.source.ContentType"> 
        <void property="type"> 
         <string>text/x-vcalendar</string> 
        </void> 
        <void property="version"> 
         <string>1.0</string> 
        </void> 
       </object> 
      </void> 
     </array> 
    </void> 
   </object> 
  </void> 
  <void property="name"> 
   <string>iCal</string> 
  </void> 
  <void property="sourceURI"> 
   <string>ical</string> 
  </void> 
  <void property="type"> 
   <string>text/x-vcalendar</string> 
  </void> 
  <void property="zimbraUrl"> 
   <string>http://localhost/service/soap</string> 
  </void> 
 </object> 
</java>

And Sync4j/server/config/zimbra-1.0/zimbra-1.0/zimbra-contact-1.0/vCard.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<java version="1.4.2_08" class="java.beans.XMLDecoder"> 
 <object class="sync4j.zimbra.engine.source.ZimbraContactSyncSource"> 
  <void property="encode"> 
   <boolean>false</boolean> 
  </void> 
  <void property="info"> 
   <object class="sync4j.framework.engine.source.SyncSourceInfo"> 
    <void property="supportedTypes"> 
     <array class="sync4j.framework.engine.source.ContentType" length="2"> 
      <void index="0"> 
       <object class="sync4j.framework.engine.source.ContentType"> 
        <void property="type"> 
         <string>text/x-vcard</string> 
        </void> 
        <void property="version"> 
         <string>2.1</string> 
        </void> 
       </object> 
      </void> 
      <void index="1"> 
       <object class="sync4j.framework.engine.source.ContentType"> 
        <void property="type"> 
         <string>text/vcard</string> 
        </void> 
        <void property="version"> 
         <string>3.0</string> 
        </void> 
       </object> 
      </void> 
     </array> 
    </void> 
   </object> 
  </void> 
  <void property="name"> 
   <string>vCard</string> 
  </void> 
  <void property="sourceURI"> 
   <string>vcard</string> 
  </void> 
  <void property="type"> 
   <string>text/x-vcard</string> 
  </void> 
  <void property="zimbraUrl"> 
   <string>http://localhost/service/soap</string> 
  </void> 
 </object> 
</java>

I think that's it..

[jproig]

Hi guys...
I am trying to help with this... if I rewrite the code of the zimbra connector to use Postgresql (wich is supported by funambol6) it would help?
thanks
Juan

[hillman]

Hello and welcome to the forums!

Thanks for the offer, however the connector already has support for Postgresql and mysql. I added in hsqldb support (just a very minor change to the mysql sql, really) because that's the default database used by Funambol/sync4j for a simple test setup.

But I'm no java programmer, so if you have java experience, you'd probably be able to make much faster progress than I am. I'm still working on step 1 - getting the bugs out of the current connector. Step 2, which is substantially larger, is to port it to Funambol 6 (which has a substantially different API, and modified frameworks that the connector had been relying on)