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Bug 737684 - Enhancement - No zPush support due autodiscover.xml expectation
Enhancement - No zPush support due autodiscover.xml expectation
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 720519
Product: gnome-online-accounts
Classification: Core
Component: Exchange
3.14.x
Other Linux
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: GNOME Online Accounts maintainer(s)
GNOME Online Accounts maintainer(s)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2014-09-30 20:39 UTC by dr.os
Modified: 2015-03-26 17:22 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description dr.os 2014-09-30 20:39:50 UTC
## Summary
If you want to connect to a exchange resource provided by zPush a handshake is not possible due GNOME-ONLINE-ACCOUNTS expects 

"POST /autodiscover/autodiscover.xml HTTP/1.1" 404 312 "-" "libews/0.1"

but zPush has no official autodiscover.xml support so far. 

## Expected behaviour
* connect to the exchange protocol in fallback without autodiscover.xml

## audience
Nearly any opensource groupware which uses zPush
* zafara -and forks
* Groupoffice
* Zimbra

## suggested solution
* Ask for Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync

With zPush it's done like this:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(office\.)?r-system\.de [NC]
RewriteRule Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync(.*) /modules/z-push21/index.php$1 [E=REDIRECT_ACTIVESYNC:true,E=REMOTE_USER:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

that way iOS is able to connect to the exchange/zPush server

## conclusion
The effort seems to be minor - the compatibility effect is huge
Comment 1 dr.os 2014-09-30 20:42:06 UTC
can anybody remove my url from the post please !!!
It was a mistake.
Comment 2 Debarshi Ray 2014-10-01 11:13:33 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> ## Summary
> If you want to connect to a exchange resource provided by zPush a handshake is
> not possible due GNOME-ONLINE-ACCOUNTS expects 
> 
> "POST /autodiscover/autodiscover.xml HTTP/1.1" 404 312 "-" "libews/0.1"
> 
> but zPush has no official autodiscover.xml support so far. 

We use EWS for our Exchange support, not ActiveSync. The problem with a fallback mechanism involving EWS and ActiveSync is that it becomes a bit more complicated for the application (ie. Evolution) to know which protocol to use for this account. Currently, if it sees an Exchange account in GOA, it simply picks EWS.

I would like to hear the opinion of the Evolution maintainers before proceeding in this direction.
Comment 3 Milan Crha 2014-10-01 11:42:36 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> but zPush has no official autodiscover.xml support so far. 

As far as I can tell, z-Push is used for ActiveSync only, not for EWS protocol, while each protocol works in a similar, but different way. Evolution currently supports only EWS protocol from these two. There exists the 
evolution-activesync [1], but it is not maintained currently.

The way GOA and evolution-ews asks for autodiscover information conforms with MSDN documentation for the EWS protocol. I even do not know how much the z-Push/ActiveSync returned XML is compatible with the one described for EWS.

Thus while I agree that it would be nice to get the compatibility, then if there is nothing what would respond to it, the change would cause only confusion to the users. As you said, the change might be minimal, simply add another URL to try for the autodiscover, but if that URL provides only information for the ActiveSync connections, then it won't help to GOA listeners in any way.

[1] https://git.gnome.org/browse/evolution-activesync
Comment 4 dr.os 2014-10-02 02:32:44 UTC
OK pointed out the difference http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dn144954(v=exchg.140).aspx

tl:dr; 
ActiveSync is primerly for mobile devices.

BUT: As a lot of zPush related groupwares have this connector wouldn't it make sense to support them? If evolution only supports ews then there could be an advice for not supporting activeSync. Why not?

At the moment you do not have the chance to use groupwares in gnome except ownCloud and ews related ones which I don't know except Exchange itself.  

There's no calDav or cardDav in GNOME. 

So my thought was to give some input to wipe away this issue. Perhaps this bugfile can be used as basis to force some changes in groupware support under GNOME. Maybe other maintainers get poked to get this ecosystem closed for communications.

I spot on: 

* CONTACTS -> https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Contacts
* GEARY -> https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary
* MAIL -> https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Mail
* CALENDAR -> https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Calendar
* NOTES -> https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Notes

cheers
Comment 5 Debarshi Ray 2014-10-02 05:43:45 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> At the moment you do not have the chance to use groupwares in gnome except
> ownCloud and ews related ones which I don't know except Exchange itself.  
> 
> There's no calDav or cardDav in GNOME. 

That last sentence doesn't sound right. ownCloud works using CalDAV and CardDAV, so we do support those protocols in various applications. What is true, though, is that we don't let you add such standalone accounts in GOA. Bug 720519 is about adding that.

> So my thought was to give some input to wipe away this issue. Perhaps this
> bugfile can be used as basis to force some changes in groupware support under
> GNOME. Maybe other maintainers get poked to get this ecosystem closed for
> communications.

Which Groupware servers do you have in mind? I only have access to ownCloud and Exchange, so that is what we have at the moment. I am personally interested in Zimbra because that has been asked for before. Do you have a test Zimbra installation somewhere that I can develop against?
Comment 6 dr.os 2014-10-02 05:53:35 UTC
> That last sentence doesn't sound right. ownCloud works using CalDAV and
CardDAV, so we do support those protocols in various applications.

Yes, I forgot to mention that.

> Which Groupware servers do you have in mind?

Everything that supports calDAV and webDAV

* zafara -and forks
* Groupoffice
* Zimbra
* eGroupware

> Do you have a test Zimbra
installation somewhere that I can develop against?

No, I only got a groupOffice -which is in production.
Why don't you go with a vagrant/virtualbox? Then you can test all of them with no hassle.

If you need help with a vagrant, I can edit a file which generates for you the virtual machine with a ready to use webserver.
Comment 7 Milan Crha 2014-10-02 06:40:28 UTC
Actually, the ownCloud code, with a little changes, can be used for any servers supporting CalDAV/CardDAV collection discovery. Then the GOA either can show each found sources, or let the consumer of the GOA-offered information to duplicate the detection code and use all the found sources (like it is done with the ownCloud sources in evolution-data-server).
Comment 8 Debarshi Ray 2015-03-26 17:22:40 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 720519 ***