groupware advice

[harty83]

Hello all,

I know that there is a lot of documentation about linux groupware out there, but to be honest none of it is worth crap. Almost every groupware I've looked at, their documentation sucks.

So, I'm turning to the community for experienced advice.

I'm looking for an open source (aka free) Groupware server that must have the following:

1) Email (I already have a courier imap server set up; it just needs to have an email web client)
2) Calendaring
3) Contacts
4) Pocket pc support (syncml)
5) PIM must be able to sync with Evolution and Outlook (outlook not as important)

A bit of history:
I've looked at a lot of different groupware servers such as open-xchange, egroupware, phpgroupware, groupwise, kolab2, citadel, hula, and a bunch more I can't remember at the moment. I have used Kolab2 for a while, but it lacks pocket pc and decent evolution support.

I am currently using eGroupware which has met my needs best thus far but I can't get PIM to work correctly in Evolution (multisync sucks [can't get it to work and it duplicates everything], opensync does not seem to support syncing with an already established syncml server, and syncevolution will not sync and returns errors after the first sync). Citadel looks promising but I can't figure out if it supports syncml (so I can sync my pocket pc). Any thoughts on that?

Any thoughts, advice, experience, etc will be much appreciated!

Thanks!
Alan

[harty83]

Found the perfect solution. I'm now using scheduleworld (scheduleworld.com). That takes care of all my needs. Syncevolution works great with it. And the best part is that I don't have to mess around with installations, configs, etc. They pretty much do it all for me!

Alan

[niels]

Originally Posted by harty83 Found the perfect solution. I'm now using scheduleworld (scheduleworld.com). That takes care of all my needs. Syncevolution works great with it. And the best part is that I don't have to mess around with installations, configs, etc. They pretty much do it all for me! Alan

Hi, I would like to know how you installed, configured and use SyncEvolution. I can't find any good howto.

[harty83]

Originally Posted by niels Hi, I would like to know how you installed, configured and use SyncEvolution. I can't find any good howto.

Sure what version are you using? Back when i compiled I used 0.4. But now it looks like 0.5 is out.

It looks like they created some precompiled binaries for 0.5. I couldn't get those to work. so download the source instead.

http://sourceforge.net/project/downl...ar.gz&49083195

Unpack it and cd into the unpacked directory (syncevolution-0.5).

Then do

./configure --prefix=/usr
make

Now I use checkinstall to create a deb file because it is easy to uninstall later via synaptic. If you have checkinstall installed you can then do

sudo checkinstall

Or if you do not do

sudo make install

There are a number of dev packages you need to install but I can't remember what they are. I believe they were libcurl3-dev, evolution-data-server-dev and libdb3-dev. If you get errors during the ./configure stage, see what it is saying is missing. Then open synaptic and look for that package (sometimes ubuntu lists the packaged as libwhatever). Install the whatever-dev package and reconfigure. If you have trouble finding something let me know.

As far as configuring syncevolution, you need to create the following directory structure renaming what's iin italics: /home/your_home/.sync4j/evolution/whatever/spds

Then in the spds directory, create two more directories. One named "sources" and the other "syncml."

In the sources directory create three more directories: "addressbook," "calendar," and "todo."

Now for the config files. In each of those three directories you need a config.txt file.

Here are mine:

addressbook/config.txt

# name of the source, must match the <source> in
# spds/sources/<source>/config.txt
name = addressbook

# requests a certain synchronization mode:
#   two-way             = only send/receive changes since last sync
#   slow                = exchange all items
#   refresh-from-client = discard all local items and replace with
#                         the items on the server
#   refresh-from-server = discard all remote items and replace with
#                         the items on the client
#   none                = synchronization disabled
sync = two-way

# overrides the supported synchronization modes
syncModes = two-way,slow,refresh-from-client,refresh-from-server

# specifies the format of the data
#
# text/calendar    = Evolution calender data (in iCalendar 2.0 format)
# text/x-todo      = Evolution task data (iCalendar 2.0)
# text/x-vcard     = Evolution contact data in vCard 2.1 format
#                    (works with most servers)
# test/vcard       = Evolution contact data in vCard 3.0 (RFC 2425) format
#                    (internal format of Evolution, preferred with servers
#                    that support it and thus recommended for ScheduleWorld
#                    together with the "card3" uri)
#
# Sending and receiving items in the same format as used by the server for
# the uri selected below is essential. Errors while parsing and/or storing
# items one either client or server can be caused by a mismatch between
# type and uri.
type = text/vcard


# picks one of Evolution's data sources:
# enter either the name or the full URL
#
# To get a full list of available data sources,
# run syncevolution without parameters. The name
# is printed in front of the colon, followed by
# the URL. Usually the name is unique and can be
# used to reference the data source.
evolutionsource = Personal

# this is appended to the server's URL to identify the
# server's database
uri = card3

# authentication for Evolution source
evolutionuser = 
evolutionpassword = 

# used by the SyncML library internally; do not modify
last = 0

Couple notes: the evolutionsource should be the name of your calendar, addressbook or todo in evolution. If you have a username and password for evolution, then you need to add them under authentication for Evolution source. Otherwise leave the username and password blank as I have.

Here are the other two:

calendar/config.txt

# name of the source, must match the <source> in
# spds/sources/<source>/config.txt
name = calendar

# requests a certain synchronization mode:
#   two-way             = only send/receive changes since last sync
#   slow                = exchange all items
#   refresh-from-client = discard all local items and replace with
#                         the items on the server
#   refresh-from-server = discard all remote items and replace with
#                         the items on the client
#   none                = synchronization disabled
sync = two-way

# overrides the supported synchronization modes
syncModes = slow,two-way,refresh-from-client,refresh-from-server

# specifies the format of the data
#
# text/calendar    = Evolution calender data (in iCalendar 2.0 format)
# text/x-todo      = Evolution task data (iCalendar 2.0)
# text/x-vcard     = Evolution contact data in vCard 2.1 format
#                    (works with most servers)
# test/vcard       = Evolution contact data in vCard 3.0 (RFC 2425) format
#                    (internal format of Evolution, preferred with servers
#                    that support it and thus recommended for ScheduleWorld
#                    together with the "card3" uri)
#
# Sending and receiving items in the same format as used by the server for
# the uri selected below is essential. Errors while parsing and/or storing
# items one either client or server can be caused by a mismatch between
# type and uri.
type = text/calendar


# picks one of Evolution's data sources:
# enter either the name or the full URL
#
# To get a full list of available data sources,
# run syncevolution without parameters. The name
# is printed in front of the colon, followed by
# the URL. Usually the name is unique and can be
# used to reference the data source.
evolutionsource = Personal

# this is appended to the server's URL to identify the
# server's database
uri = cal2

# authentication for Evolution source
evolutionuser = 
evolutionpassword = 

# used by the SyncML library internally; do not modify
last = 0

todo/config.txt

# name of the source, must match the <source> in
# spds/sources/<source>/config.txt
name = todo

# requests a certain synchronization mode:
#   two-way             = only send/receive changes since last sync
#   slow                = exchange all items
#   refresh-from-client = discard all local items and replace with
#                         the items on the server
#   refresh-from-server = discard all remote items and replace with
#                         the items on the client
#   none                = synchronization disabled
sync = two-way

# overrides the supported synchronization modes
syncModes = slow,two-way,refresh-from-client,refresh-from-server

# specifies the format of the data
#
# text/calendar    = Evolution calender data (in iCalendar 2.0 format)
# text/x-todo      = Evolution task data (iCalendar 2.0)
# text/x-vcard     = Evolution contact data in vCard 2.1 format
#                    (works with most servers)
# test/vcard       = Evolution contact data in vCard 3.0 (RFC 2425) format
#                    (internal format of Evolution, preferred with servers
#                    that support it and thus recommended for ScheduleWorld
#                    together with the "card3" uri)
#
# Sending and receiving items in the same format as used by the server for
# the uri selected below is essential. Errors while parsing and/or storing
# items one either client or server can be caused by a mismatch between
# type and uri.
type = text/x-todo


# picks one of Evolution's data sources:
# enter either the name or the full URL
#
# To get a full list of available data sources,
# run syncevolution without parameters. The name
# is printed in front of the colon, followed by
# the URL. Usually the name is unique and can be
# used to reference the data source.
evolutionsource = Personal

# this is appended to the server's URL to identify the
# server's database
uri = task2

# authentication for Evolution source
evolutionuser = 
evolutionpassword = 

# used by the SyncML library internally; do not modify
last = 0

Finally, you need to create a config.txt in the /home/your_home/.sync4j/evolution/whatever/spds/syncml directory.

Here is mine:

# the base URL of the SyncML server:
# - Sync4j 2.3
#syncURL = http://hartys.org:1972/egroupware/rpc.php
# - Funambol >= 3.0
#syncURL = http://localhost:8080/funambol/ds
# - sync.scheduleworld.com
syncURL = http://sync.scheduleworld.com/funambol/ds

# the SyncML server gets this string and will use it to keep track of
# changes that still need to be synchronized with this particular
# client; it must be set to something unique if SyncEvolution is used
# to synchronize data between different computers
deviceId = sc-api-nat-hartysdesktop

# authorization for the SyncML server
username = 
password = 

# set to T to enable an HTTP proxy
useProxy = 0
# proxy URL (http://<host>:<port>)
proxyHost = 
# user agent string used for HTTP
userAgent = SyncEvolution

# full path to directory where automatic backups and logs
# are stored for all synchronizations; if empty, the temporary
# directory "$TMPDIR/SyncEvolution-<username>-<server>" will
# be used to keep the data of just the latest synchronization run
logdir =

# Unless this option is set, SyncEvolution will never delete
# anything in the "logdir". If set, the oldest directories and
# all their content will be removed after a successful sync
# to prevent the number of log directories from growing beyond
# the given limit.
maxlogdirs =

# This value is the number of changes which are sent to the
# server at once. It is set to a very large number to work around
# problems in either client library or server when items are
# actually sent in multiple chunks during a slow sync - do not edit!
maxModPerMsg = 100000

# used by the SyncML library internally; do not modify
begin =0
end =0
firstTimeSyncMode = 0

serverID = 
serverPWD = 
serverNonce = 
clientNonce = 
clientAuthType = 
serverAuthType = 
isServerAuthRequired = 0
proxyPort = 0
proxyUsername = 
proxyPassword = 
checkConn = 0
responseTimeout = 0
readBufferSize = 0
maxMsgSize = 0
encryption = 0

Fill in the username and password with what is given to you by scheduleworld. Customize the device name.

Now to run, do

syncevolution whatever

with the whatever being what you named /home/your_home/.sync4j/evolution/whatever

That should do it. Let me know if you have any problems.

Alan

[niels]

Thank you for the quick answer...

Originally Posted by harty83 Sure what version are you using? Back when i compiled I used 0.4. But now it looks like 0.5 is out. It looks like they created some precompiled binaries for 0.5. I couldn't get those to work. so download the source instead. http://sourceforge.net/project/downl...ar.gz&49083195 Unpack it and cd into the unpacked directory (syncevolution-0.5). Then do ./configure --prefix=/usr make

I got this far, but the ./configure resulted in the following:

niels@niels-laptop:~/Download/syncevolution-0.5$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... mawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
configure: configuring the client library 
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... mawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for g++... no
checking for c++... no
checking for gpp... no
checking for aCC... no
checking for CC... no
checking for cxx... no
checking for cc++... no
checking for cl... no
checking for FCC... no
checking for KCC... no
checking for RCC... no
checking for xlC_r... no
checking for xlC... no
checking for C++ compiler default output file name... configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.
configure: error: configuring client library failed 
niels@niels-laptop:~/Download/syncevolution-0.5$

Do you know what the problem is?

I have attached the log-file.

[harty83]

Looks like you don't have a compiler installed.

Try this and then reconfigure:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

[niels]

Originally Posted by harty83 Looks like you don't have a compiler installed. Try this and then reconfigure: sudo apt-get install build-essential

Ok. I figured it out and installed the g++ and evolution-data-dev.

After following your other instructions, everything seems to work! Tank you!

[MarkSwanson]

harty83 - that was a very helpful post. You rock.

[jackyyll]

When i try to configure i get this error:

checking for libcurl... missing
configure: error: libcurl is required, check that its development package is installed and curl-config is in your PATH
configure: error: configuring client library failed

How do i get libcurl?

[harty83]

Originally Posted by jackyyll When i try to configure i get this error: checking for libcurl... missing configure: error: libcurl is required, check that its development package is installed and curl-config is in your PATH configure: error: configuring client library failed How do i get libcurl?

sudo apt-get install libcurl3 libcurl3-dev