[SOLVED] Zarafa IMAP/IMAPS access, creating HowTo

[bbking]

Guys,

I'm working on a HowTo to save us a lot of time with the recurring questions here: http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Documentation/Community/Howto/ZarafaSetupWithOutlookThunderbirdSync

(screenshots and better descriptions to come, just wanted to document the things I still remember from last week... )

I'd need help with the IMAP/IMAPS access (asked a 1.000 times here, no definite answer found) from Thunderbird to Zarafa, AFAIU it should be possible. From Thunderbrid I always get a "Login to server <ip_here> failed." IMAP+IMAPS service are active on the Groupware page, Webmail is deactivated. What's wrong?

Thanks in advance!
BBKing

[christian]

1 - nothing to do with webmail 
2 - ensure mail retrieval services are not activated (in mail section)  (I write this but I never installed Zarafa  so tell me if I'm wrong)
3 - be sure you use the right login: standard mail expects your mail address as login while Zarafa uses your uid (again if I'm correct)

As matter of test, what does happen if you telnet on port 143?

[bbking]

1 - nothing to do with webmail 

well, it does, kind of - when webmail is active I coudn't configure Zarafa to have IMAP and IMAPS services, because Zentyal told me that the "Mail retrival services" need at least one of them - on which Webmail depends.

2 - ensure mail retrieval services are not activated (in mail section)  (I write this but I never installed Zarafa  so tell me if I'm wrong)

Is there something else to consider besides assigning IMAP and IMAPS to Zarafa (that means, no checkbox is active under Mail Retrival Services...)

3 - be sure you use the right login: standard mail expects your mail address as login while Zarafa uses your uid (again if I'm correct)

I think you are wrong here, because Zarafa offers the service, so you have to authenticate agains Zarafa's user database. That's what I'm doing, but no success, see below...

Code: [Select]

bbking@aquamaniac:~$ telnet 192.168.10.88 143
Trying 192.168.10.88...
Connected to 192.168.10.88.
Escape character is '^]'.
* OK Zarafa IMAP gateway ready
a001 login bbking  <my_pwd>
a001 NO LOGIN wrong username or password
Connection closed by foreign host.


EDIT: according to this,  this and this you have to enable IMAP support for Zarafa, but the pages linked talk about Zarafa 7, the option don't work on 6.4.
Either

Code: [Select]

enabled_features = imap
disabled_features =
zarafa_admin -u bbking --enable-feature=imap
don't work for me.


Thanks
BBKing

[christian]

I am really confused with your answer:

1 - You really mix-up things about webmail: the point is that webmail acts as IMAP client, reason why it may enable, by default, IMAP port for standard mail, which is preventing Zarafa IMAP gateway to start. Let's Zentyal team react on this.
2 - your telnet on port 143 does show that you access Zarafa IMAP server isn't it?
3 - So far, I don't think there is any so called "Zarafa user DB" is there? Zarafa is configured to rely on LDAP    Difference, from mail standpoint, is that IMAP std mail server (Dovecot) expect login as "address@domain" while Zarafa, authenticating directly against LDAP, expects "login" (your LDAP login).

Even if I never installed Zarafa, please trust me, I'm almost sure of this, just because this is the way components are stacked all together 

and back to one you your comment/question:

Is there something else to consider besides assigning IMAP and IMAPS to Zarafa (that means, no check-box is active under Mail Retrival Services...)

this is exactly what I wrote: "ensure mail retrieval services are not activated in the mail section" which means, in extenso, NO POP, POPS, IMAP and IMAPS. Did you confuse it with fetchmail?

[bbking]

well, thanks for bearing with me, then!

1: although I might have not been clear about this, I pretty much understand the how Webmail works. On the other hand, why is the Webmail module annoyed when you want to provide IMAP over Zarafa instead of DoveCot? It might be a bug in the GUI, because according to "common sense" Webmail is only a client which needs any kind of IMAP service, running. Here jsalmero writes that

We don't want force people to use one system or other, that's why designed the mail system this way. You will be able to use Postfix+Dovecot with maildir but also Zarafa. Both systems can coexist (under different domains).

which is confusing for me a bit.


So again, I think it would make sense to enhance the HowTo and provide clear and full answers (no offense to anyone so far!!), because lots of people are asking these questions.



2: sorry, I'm not sure about your wording here - isn't it what?

3: you're right again, I was refering to LDAP as user DB.

Regarding "mail retrival services": I unchecked all checkboxes for IMAP,IMAPS, POP, POPS and external mail retrival, so I think we were talking about the same here.

Anyway, I did some research on the topic in the Zarafa forum, the problem is that standard users in Zarafa don't have IMAP access enabled and the question is, how could I enable it? The mentioned options did not work for me.

[christian]

well, thanks for bearing with me, then!

1: although I might have not been clear about this, I pretty much understand the how Webmail works. On the other hand, why is the Webmail module annoyed when you want to provide IMAP over Zarafa instead of DoveCot? It might be a bug in the GUI, because according to "common sense" Webmail is only a client which needs any kind of IMAP service, running. Here jsalmero writes that

We don't want force people to use one system or other, that's why designed the mail system this way. You will be able to use Postfix+Dovecot with maildir but also Zarafa. Both systems can coexist (under different domains).

which is confusing for me a bit.

This is confusing for me too if the assumption is to have both IMAP listener with Dovecot and IMAP gateway with Zarafa. Or IMAP port has to be customized somewhere...
If Zarafa IMAP gateway is not started, there is no conflict. Still I don't understand the delivery process (Procmail vs. Zarafa) but I should install Zarafa at least once to improve my understanding here.

For what concerns webmail to be able to act as Zarafa client when it comes to access, via IMAP, Zarafa gateway, it should work, from pure technical standpoint. However, let's ensure with Zentyal that they have not implemented any control ensuring that mail IMAP retriever is started when webmail is configured. Anyway, we are not at this stage and I understand thanks from your last post, that issue is on Zarafa side with account configuration to grant account with IMAP service. Am I correct?

[bbking]

yes, you are!

The thing is, I don't even need Webmail -> user should use webaccess -> I'd like to have Thunderbird as client (which in technical terms shouldn't be a difference, since both are IMAP clients) for those, who use a non-Windows OS.

You could give Zarafa a try, it's quite a nice tool and I've been waiting for a complete solution like this for the last 5 years or so...

Would be great if someone from Zentyal team could shed some light on this -> as I said, I'm working on that HowTo to make everyone's life easier.

[christian]

You could give Zarafa a try, it's quite a nice tool and I've been waiting for a complete solution like this for the last 5 years or so...

The point is that I really don't want    reason why I never did it. I may for test purpose however.

To me, Zarafa philosophy is just to fight again Microsoft using same, to some extend, proprietary approach. I understand some aspects like providing MAPI when it comes to be "Exchange" compliant but I don't like the general "all-in-one" view with few or even no flexibility.
For what concerns at least mail, I do not see any added value with Zarafa but drawbacks, unless you have Outlook clients. But even Outlook can be configured as IMAP client.
The point is not really mail then but more all the stuff around Exchange server with calendar and other funny features.
So Zarafa is maybe a nice product, I even don't know but I will, for the time being, not go in this direction because I'm not in the middle of any fight against Microsoft  which is Zarafa motto.

My personal choice is to deploy components relying on IEEE and RFC standards rather than more "proprietary" design.

[bbking]

I fully agree on this. However, I'm tired of half-working components, where something is missing to offer good usability. The only reason I did not invest in MS Server + Exchange is that I sort of too much commited to linux (although I am far away from being an expert). Zarafa is a 100% clone of Exchange, I don't even understand how they are not sued to death by MS. Maybe they just don't care, because their market share might be in the range of under 1% compared to Exchange.
The point is maybe in the costs for small busnisses who don't want to spend a few thousand of euros for MS Server+Exchange and heavy irons to run them on. I run Zentyal on a P4...

Nevertheless, when Zentyal switches over to Hurd as OS, you can imagine that there will be changes again in all sorts of software... ;D;D;D

EDIT: just an interesting link how to allow delivery to Zarafa / Cyrus on a per user basis: http://www.zarafaserver.de/faq/how-can-i-run-both-cyrus-and-zarafa-single-server

[bbking]

okay, the Zarafa guys say, that the version that is used in Zentyal (6.40.8-27223) is not limited in IMAP access.
IMAP access is default off in version 7.0, but not in 6.40 - must be limited by Zentyal.

Could anyone of the devs involved make a comment on this, please?

Thanks a lot in advance
BBKing

[bbking]

OK, this is a gotcha....

I changed the port number of Zarafa a week ago. As of now, in Zentyal you have to do this by hand in the config files if you want to use a custom port. I haven't realized until now, that (of course) the gateway needs to know the new port as well!

Can you do that in the 2.2 release in the GUI? If not, is this a needed change? I might commit myself to work over the config files that are handled in my HowTo, if there is enough need for this.