Thursday, May 13, 2010

Switching to Ubuntu 10.04


DavMail POP/IMAP/SMTP/CalDav/LDAP Exchange Gateway

I recently made the decision to drop Windows and use Ubuntu 10.04 as my primary office desktop. I've spent the last 6 months developing a new Open Source software training course therefore I've been fully immersed in Linux for many months (no GUI either strictly Ubuntu Server edition). Making the switch doesn't feel as radical a change now as it might have 6 months ago. Given Canonical recently released Lucid Lynx I decided to give it a try. Installing Ubuntu 10.04 was super easy and very quick, I must say I really like Ubuntu's new theme. Everything works well with one exception. My employer uses Exchange 2007 (typical office MTA) but for some reason Evolution refuses to bond in holy matrimony with Exchange 2007. It gives me an authentication error even though I know I'm using proper credentials. I've done some Google'ing and others seem to have similar problems. It seems this issue has been around for a while its not new with 10.04.

I know what you're thinking I could have used IMAP or POP and SMTP. Well no luck my employer does not have IMAP or POP enabled from the outside. (Yes I'm not on the internal network) don't ask for work-duty related reasons I'm behind the firewall but not exactly on the internal network. In any case I spent a few hours looking around for an alternative email client however Evolution seems to be the best choice and closest in functionality to Outlook. Not that I'm a big Outlook fanboy but much better then Microsoft's crippled OWA (remember I'm not using IE) Well I'm happy to say I found a great tool; not a replacement for Evolution but a solution to my problem. It's called DavMail.

DavMail is an email gateway; essentially its a Java application running on my local client. It connects with Exchange over HTTPS and I connect to DavMail over IMAP SMTP etc... and voila Evolution is alive and well with Exchange 2007. There are some quirks but so far its been working well. DavMail docs say it works with Apple's iPhone too. I'll play with it a while longer and report back. Thanks DavMail!

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