Author Topic: eGroupware sync  (Read 14998 times)

cheesyking

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eGroupware sync
« on: April 01, 2009, 05:32:01 pm »
Want to sync your mobile phone, Thunderbird or even (shudder) Outlook with egroupware?

Well it's actually dead easy! eGroupware supports syncML out the box there is just one small change you have to make on the ebox version to get it to work.

By default egroup is setup to use the db for session control you just have to switch this to PHP and you're good to go. I assume the default is to use the database because session control only appeared with PHP4 so this allows egroup to run on php3 systems. Since ebox uses PHP5 maybe it would be worth changing this setting in the setting in the standard install...

Anyhow here's the dummies guide, just run:
Code: [Select]
sudo nano -w /usr/share/egroupware/header.inc.phpsearch for session_type (by pressing ctrl+w and typing in "session_type") which should get you to a line that looks like this:
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        $GLOBALS['egw_info']['server']['sessions_type'] = 'db';which you need to change to:
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        $GLOBALS['egw_info']['server']['sessions_type'] = 'php4';press ctrl+o to save and ctrl+x to exit nano.

Now you just need to setup you client with the following info:
Connection:
  • Server version - 1.1
  • Host address - http://yourdomain.com/rpc.php
  • Port - 80 (unless you've changed it for some reason)
  • Username/Password - your egroupware login details
Applications:
  • calendar - ./calendar
  • contacts - ./contacts
  • nots - ./notes (these are info log entries)

That works fine on my nokia e51.

To sync Thunderbird/Outlook/blackberries/windowsmobile etc you have to install some syncML software, I've always used funambol but there are probably alternatives.

Here are some links:
http://www.egroupware.org/sync
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/8616
https://www.forge.funambol.org/download/

Enjoy syncing without docking!  ;D

J. A. Calvo

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2009, 07:02:49 pm »
Hi chessyking!

Thank you for the tip! I think it will be very useful to a lot of people :)

I have just changed "db" to "php4" in the ebox trunk, so the next version will come with it.

Meanwhile, I recommend changing /usr/share/ebox/stups/egroupware/header.inc.php.mas instead, because the other file will be overwritten everytime something changes in the configuration.

Regards,

J. A. Calvo
Zentyal Server Lead Developer

javi

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2009, 08:00:29 pm »
Hey Cheesyking,

Thanks a lot for sharing this. I love when you guys come up with this kind of useful tip that we can easily add to eBox.

Thanks a lot again :)

cheesyking

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2009, 04:53:26 pm »
No problem, it's good to be useful!

Thanks for the tip on changing the /usr/share/ebox/stubs/egroupware/header.inc.php.mas file.

nuanda

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2009, 05:38:52 pm »
It works very good with Nokia E90 and Funambol plugin.  ;)

cl0s

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2009, 04:40:58 pm »
Thank you! This was great.

I did have an issue with syncing contacts in Thunderbird using the Funambol plug-in though. It would duplicate any contacts I entered in Thunderbird every time it synced, worked fine coming from eGroupware though.

Anyways I thought I would post a quick how-to for getting it to work with Evolution (which I like better than Thunderbird anyway :).

First we need to install syncevolution, and unfortunately it is not in the Ubuntu repos, so lets add the syncevolution repo and install it.

Code: [Select]
sudo echo 'deb http://www.estamos.de/download/apt stable main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install syncevolution

It's a command line program and has some pretty easy and well documented config files, but Genesis, a python graphical front-end for it, is easier and allows you to sync on intervals or by just clicking its icon in the system tray. Lets download and install that:

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wget https://launchpad.net/%7Efrederik-elwert/+archive/ppa/+files/genesis-sync_0.4~intrepid1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i genesis-sync_0.4~intrepid1_all.deb

After that's done, you can go to Application > Genesis. It should open up in your system tray, where you can right click on it and go to Preferences and set the sync intervals, open on start-up, etc. After that you would want to go to 'Add Server' with the following settings:

Code: [Select]
Server name: eGroupware (or whatever you want here)
Server template: Funambol (worked best for me, had problems with all the others.)
Server address: http://yourserver/egroupware/rpc.php

Next screen would prompt for your Username and password.

Then finally you would set the items you want to sync. You can leave the local field empty or pick whichever Addressbook/ Calendar etc you want it to sync to, if left empty it will sync with the default one that you have chosen in Evolution. The URIs for each are identical to Thunderbirds.

Code: [Select]
Addressbook: contacts
Calendar: calendar
Notes: notes
Todo: (I left disabled even though I think it uses infolog also, but it was giving me problems.)

Now just hit 'Apply', and go to Select Server > 'server name' if its not already chosen. Whenever you click the icon in the system tray it will sync with eGroupware.

With this, and if you set the LDAP address book in Evolution (for it to better match up with calendar invites, meetings, etc.) and imap for email you have a complete Workgroup client/server setup using Ubuntu. Thank  you eBox!!
« Last Edit: April 07, 2009, 04:47:57 pm by cl0s »

centaur5

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2009, 08:10:55 pm »
Thank you very much for this post it is exactly what I was looking for this week.  Although I do have a problem since I'm trying to use Evolution to sync which according to EGroupware's site it is compatible with SyncML so I'm not sure how you put the settings into Evolution.  Has anybody else set it up with Evolution?  Last I checked Thunderbird doesn't have a notes application but if that has changed then I guess I can switch I prefer Thunderbird anyway.

cl0s

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2009, 08:24:08 pm »
Thank you very much for this post it is exactly what I was looking for this week.  Although I do have a problem since I'm trying to use Evolution to sync which according to EGroupware's site it is compatible with SyncML so I'm not sure how you put the settings into Evolution.  Has anybody else set it up with Evolution?  Last I checked Thunderbird doesn't have a notes application but if that has changed then I guess I can switch I prefer Thunderbird anyway.

right above you  ::) just posted it today..  ;D

centaur5

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #8 on: April 09, 2009, 06:40:28 am »
First I would like to apologize for posting that message when the answer was above.  The night before I posted it I read through the entire post and since it wasn't there decided to research the next day but after finding nothing posted without reading the update.  :)

On another note, I followed those directions and they worked beautifully so thanks for those.  Now my question is has anybody gotten calendar sharing to work cause I have my account synchronizing on my computer but would like to have the entries added from another user's account.  I've tinkered around with the "Grant Access" settings in the web interface for EGroupware but haven't had any luck getting the entries to show across different user's calendars in Evolution.  Perhaps it's just not possible yet.  :(
« Last Edit: April 09, 2009, 06:56:41 am by centaur5 »

beamland

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2009, 09:51:19 am »
Quote
I've tinkered around with the "Grant Access" settings in the web interface for EGroupware but haven't had any luck getting the entries to show across different user's calendars in Evolution.  Perhaps it's just not possible yet.
For me this works. Just login with your eGroupware account, go to your calendar and select the user or group you'd like to see in your calender. This other user of course needs to grant access to your user (or group to which your user is assigned to).

centaur5

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #10 on: April 17, 2009, 09:44:48 pm »
Quote
I've tinkered around with the "Grant Access" settings in the web interface for EGroupware but haven't had any luck getting the entries to show across different user's calendars in Evolution.  Perhaps it's just not possible yet.
For me this works. Just login with your eGroupware account, go to your calendar and select the user or group you'd like to see in your calender. This other user of course needs to grant access to your user (or group to which your user is assigned to).

Just to clarify you used the EGroupware web login to configure the shared access with calendars and of course were able to see them there.  Afterwards syncing with Evolution you only had to add the credentials for user1 on one machine and user2 on another machine and the calendars on the local Evolution installation sync across?  I must be unlucky if that's the case cause the EGroupware web access syncs perfectly between the users (groups in this case) but I had to add credentials in Genesis for both users on both installations.

cheesyking

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2009, 02:46:16 pm »
Quote
I've tinkered around with the "Grant Access" settings in the web interface for EGroupware but haven't had any luck getting the entries to show across different user's calendars in Evolution.  Perhaps it's just not possible yet.
For me this works. Just login with your eGroupware account, go to your calendar and select the user or group you'd like to see in your calender. This other user of course needs to grant access to your user (or group to which your user is assigned to).

Just to clarify you used the EGroupware web login to configure the shared access with calendars and of course were able to see them there.  Afterwards syncing with Evolution you only had to add the credentials for user1 on one machine and user2 on another machine and the calendars on the local Evolution installation sync across?  I must be unlucky if that's the case cause the EGroupware web access syncs perfectly between the users (groups in this case) but I had to add credentials in Genesis for both users on both installations.

I'm pretty sure this is how it's intended to work... If you have one event that multiple people need to have in their calendar then you should use invites to push that out to everyone rather than rely on giving everyone access to your calendar. That way people have to opportunity to indicate whether they can attend and they are actually notified about the new event.

centaur5

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #12 on: June 08, 2009, 08:56:56 pm »
Thank you cheesyking.  I was only making appointments not meetings so Evolution doesn't let you add participants to appointments.  I never thought to look at meetings cause we don't do those.  :)  Now I feel stupid that is was something so simple.

noob11

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #13 on: July 13, 2009, 11:40:23 pm »
Are these instruction still the same for ebox 1.2?  If not has anyone got funambol working with 1.2?  If so can someone post a guide.  Thank you

J. A. Calvo

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Re: eGroupware sync
« Reply #14 on: July 14, 2009, 01:21:10 am »
The only change with ebox 1.2 is that it comes with egroupware 1.6 instead of 1.4, but I think there shouln't be sync problems with that. I haven't tried with none of the two versions but I suppose it will be the same process.

Regards,

J. A. Calvo
Zentyal Server Lead Developer