Can I connect to my company's Exchange server through Kontact?

Question

Running Kubuntu 11.04 (Natty) and am trying to replace Outlook. I need access to calendaring and email but have not been able to figure things out. A Google of things doesn't give me very good information so turning here to ask the gurus.

System information: Running Kubuntu 11.04 and would like to use Kontact (KMail) to connect to work. Also would like to avoid installing GNOME if possible.

Connecting to Exchange 2010 and I don't have access to change anything on the Exchange server

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Recently I changed from Windows to Ubuntu. I had the same problem.

After a long search I founded DavMail ( http://davmail.sourceforge.net/ ). It is a gateway which transfers all of the exchange messages to your local email client. On the website everything is explained for Thunderbird (I'm using it as well) but maybe it is also possible with Kontact (KMail).

If you start using DavMail keep a look on the log-files. It can grow very hard (mine was more then 7Gb before I noticed, I clean these every day now by putting the following in Crontab: "@reboot > /var/log/davmail.log" ).

Answer 2

Yes it's kinda almost 100% possible. Requires latest stable kdepim which is currently kdepim 4.6.1. Anything from kdepim 4.6.0/kmail2/kontact2 will work. Works via davmail, nd with akonadi resource davgroupware/davical.

You can use the old version to only send/receive email, if that's all you interested in, that's been working for ages. Yes all this requires OWA enabled on server.

For me exchange contact sync is working 100% both ways. exchange calendar sync is only working from Exchange pushed down to kontact. Not sure why. LDAP/GAL lookup is working.

Be warned, new kontact/kdepim is very buggy still although with a lot of TLC can be made to work nicely.

You can also disable davmail log file, so no need to rotate it/clean it.

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HOWTO

DavMail Settings:

MAIN
  # what is not specified here is otherwise default
  OWA: URL to exchange server
  Trash keep delay (POP): 1
  Sent keep delay (POP): 1
  Calendar past events (Caldav): 1

kontact => Mail => Configure KMail => Accounts => Add => POP3 Email Server

Name: Exchange Mail
Incoming mail server: localhost
Username: DOMAIN\username
Password: ThePassword
Check enable interval mail checking: 5 minutes
Add SMTP server
Exchange
Outgoing mail server: localhost
Server requires authentication: check
Username: DOMAIN\username
Password: ThePassword

kontact => Calendar => Add Calendar => DAV groupware resource => DAVical =>

Name: Exchange Calendar
Host: 'write anything here, doesn't matter you will edit it later'
Installation path: 'write anything here, doesn't matter you will edit it later'
uncheck use SSL
Click next, next and finish

Then edit the resource and set the following:

Remote calendar access protocol: CalDAV
Remote URL: http://localhost:1080/users/emailaddr@blah.com/calendar/
Username: DOMAIN\username
Password: ThePassword

Click Fetch and OK Refresh every 30 minutes

kontact => AddressBook => Add Address Book => DAV groupware resource => DAVical =>

Name: Exchange Contacts
Host: 'write anything here, doesn't matter you will edit it later'
Installation path: 'write anything here, doesn't matter you will edit it later'
uncheck use SSL

Click next, next and finish

Then edit the resource and set the following:

Remote calendar access protocol: CardDAV
Remote URL: http://localhost:1080/users/emailaddr@blah.com/contacts/
Username: DOMAIN\username
Password: ThePassword

Click Fetch and OK Refresh every 99 minutes

kontact => settings => Configure Kontact => Contacts => LDAP Server Settings => Add Host

Host: localhost
DN: ou=people
Authentication: Simple
Port: 1389
Bind DN: DOMAIN\username
Password: ThePassword

Click OK

Tick localhost

kontact => Mail => settings => Configure KMail => Composer => Configure completion order => and set LDAP to first

Answer 3

I don't know if this might help you pinpoint the solution to your issue, but by default, Exchange 2010 will not connect to any client which is configured to connect using unencrypted connections. If Kontact has an option to encrypt the MAPI traffic (I assume it connects via MAPI like evolution) it might connect. I'm also interested in knowing how a DAV product could connect to Exchange 2010, since the last version to support DAV access was Exchange 2007.

Regards.

Answer 4

Davmail works fine for me with kubuntu natty. I recommend you change the log-file location (I chose ~/.davmail.log) and set all log settings to WARN (not DEBUG) as otherwise the log-file grows incredibly fast.

To set-up Kmail/Kontact etc. load up Akonadi configuration and add a resource DAV Groupware. In my case DAVical was the type I required, but the setup was looking in the wrong place by default. I had to change it to http://localhost:1080/*Exchange-subfolder*/

I can sync my contacts (CardDav) and calendar (CalDav) this way. For mail though, my Uni provides an IMAP server so I use that instead.

Answer 5

Davmail will only work if IMAP is enabled on the Exchange server. The only other way is to use Evolution with the evolution-mapi plugin. But as you are saying, you use Exchange 2010, I am not sure, if mapi supports Exchange 2010. I am connecting to Exchange 2007 with mapi plugin using Evolution without issues.

Answer 6

Davmail will only work if OWA is enabled, not IMAP. Using OWA, you can connect using either IMAP through Davmail or POP through Davmail. Using IMAP, you'll not have to bring down the entire email, but just the header information; however, this does take some time when you click on an email to view it, since it will then have to download the email. POP will bring down the entire email folder to your local device, making it slower to check your email (as it downloads every email to your local directory), but much quicker to view email contents (since it's already on your device).

Answer 7

Use IMAP and in there put your companies web outlook URL in there. Then in username put domain\username. Under connection settings choose Authentication and set type as NTLM and hit Auto Detect. That should give you port but switches Authentication back to Login so switch it again to NTLM and you should be good.