GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 697677
Support Zimbra
Last modified: 2021-07-05 10:58:30 UTC
Zimbra is a popular groupware and email server that supports IMAP/SMTP, CalDAV and CardDAV. We already have the pieces in place for IMAP/SMTP and CalDAV so it would be a nice addition. This can be leveraged by Evolution, Evolution Data Server, Calendar and Contacts.
Debarshi: Could you update the status of this report, and if this is a 3.10 or 3.12 target?
Quoting Matt: "The Zimbra integration will depend on the presence of DNS SRV records for the services provided by Zimbra. We're still trying to attain such a setup (preferably through Red Hat's own internal Zimbra deployment), but at this time it doesn't look like the feature will make 3.10."
I was poking around Red Hat's Zimbra server with cadaver [1], and gained a better understanding of how Zimbra stores user account data. This might not be as complicated as I thought. It seems to just store everything -- mail folders, calendars and address books -- as WebDAV resources in a single WebDAV collection at "/dav/$USERNAME". For example, here's mine: $ cadaver https://mail.corp.redhat.com/dav/mbarnes ... cert verification, login prompt ... dav:/dav/mbarnes> ls Listing collection `/dav/mbarnes/': succeeded. Coll: Archive 0 Sep 16 2011 Coll: Briefcase 0 Sep 11 2008 Coll: Calendar 0 Sep 11 2008 Coll: Chats 0 Dec 2 08:45 Coll: Company Calendar 0 Sep 11 2008 Coll: Contacts 0 Oct 2 2010 Coll: Correspondence 0 Sep 16 2011 Coll: Drafts 0 Sep 16 2011 Coll: Emailed Contacts 0 Oct 2 2010 Coll: Inbox 0 Dec 28 2012 Coll: Junk 0 Dec 22 2012 Coll: Mailing Lists 0 Sep 16 2011 Coll: Notebook 0 Sep 16 2011 Coll: Red Hat Calendar 0 Sep 11 2008 Coll: Redroom Calendar 0 Sep 11 2008 Coll: Sent 0 Sep 16 2011 Coll: Tasks 0 Sep 11 2008 Coll: Trash 0 Dec 22 2012 Coll: attachments 0 Dec 6 17:36 From Googling, "/dav/$USERNAME" seems to be at least the default collection path on Zimbra, if not hard-coded. I'm not certain if Zimbra allows admins to customize it. GOA could do a quick HTTP PROPFIND on "/dav/$USERNAME" to verify there's a collection at that path, and prompt for a path if not. Similar to Exchange. Set both Calendar.Uri and Contacts.Uri to "https://$HOSTNAME/dav/$USERNAME" (or whatever) and E-D-S should be able to scan the WebDAV resources and set the rest up from there. Was there anything else blocking this? I can't recall. [1] http://www.webdav.org/cadaver/
(In reply to comment #3) > I was poking around Red Hat's Zimbra server with cadaver [1], and gained a > better understanding of how Zimbra stores user account data. This might not be > as complicated as I thought. > > It seems to just store everything -- mail folders, calendars and address books > -- as WebDAV resources in a single WebDAV collection at "/dav/$USERNAME". I see. Interesting. > From Googling, "/dav/$USERNAME" seems to be at least the default collection > path on Zimbra, if not hard-coded. I'm not certain if Zimbra allows admins to > customize it. > > GOA could do a quick HTTP PROPFIND on "/dav/$USERNAME" to verify there's a > collection at that path, and prompt for a path if not. Similar to Exchange. Yes, we can do that. > Set both Calendar.Uri and Contacts.Uri to "https://$HOSTNAME/dav/$USERNAME" (or > whatever) and E-D-S should be able to scan the WebDAV resources and set the > rest up from there. What about the email settings? We can ask for those in the same way we do for generic IMAP/SMTP accounts. Or can we do better?
It's not clear to me whether Zimbra even handles SMTP. When I telnet to Red Hat's SMTP server the greeting message identifies itself as Sendmail. I suggest just asking for a Zimbra hostname and an SMTP hostname up front. The Zimbra hostname should provide both IMAP and WebDAV services. Were there other email settings we need to discover?
(In reply to comment #5) > It's not clear to me whether Zimbra even handles SMTP. When I telnet to Red > Hat's SMTP server the greeting message identifies itself as Sendmail. Right. > I suggest just asking for a Zimbra hostname and an SMTP hostname up front. The > Zimbra hostname should provide both IMAP and WebDAV services. Ok. > Were there other email settings we need to discover? There is the bit about plain text vs STARTTLS vs non-STARTTLS. We could ask for that as we do for generic email accounts.
(In reply to comment #6) > There is the bit about plain text vs STARTTLS vs non-STARTTLS. We could ask for > that as we do for generic email accounts. Sounds good.
Recent events over the past one year indicate that I might not have access to a Zimbra instance anymore. So unless someone provides me an account on a test instance, I won't be implementing this.
Marking as NEEDINFO. Unless I get a test account, I will be WONTFIXing this. Just contributing a patch won't be enough, unless someone shows up to maintain it going forward.
Hi All, I can probably provide an account for Zimbra ZCS Network Edition if you are still looking?
Just hitting this again - it seems that this plan has gone cold...
(In reply to Will Tinsdeall from comment #11) > Just hitting this again - it seems that this plan has gone cold... He's on holidays...
Can you please email me the account details at rishi.is@lostca.se ? Thanks.
What is the status on this? Do you have access to an instance? Do you still need access to an instance? Zimbra seems to offer a demo as well. I don't know if this is usable? https://www.zimbra.com/try/zimbra-collaboration-hosted-demo
I just wanted to know if anybody is still working on this? I need to connect to the zimbra server of my univ for email, contacts and calendar, so this feature would be very much appreciated!
No, I am not working on this at the moment.
Will this ever be included?
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org. As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately quite limited so not every ticket can get handled). If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent and supported software version, then please follow https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines and create a new ticket at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-online-accounts/-/issues/ Thank you for your understanding and your help.