September 4, 2010, Saturday, 246

Set Up Thunderbird Against Exchange 2007

From ezUnix

Jump to: navigation, search
                                    pdf_icon.png Download this article as a single PDF document 

Contents

Introduction

Do not despair if your local IT managemend "blessed" you with the Exchange 2007 server (which of course turns out to be incompatible with any standard protocols) and refuses to turn on IMAP support.
Besides using Evolution with Exchange MAPI, which unfortunatelly is fairly unstable you can use DavMail.
DavMail is a Java based gateway creating a bridge between Exchange and standard email and calendar protocols.


Software

DavMail supports Operating Systems which can run Java such as Linux, Mac OSX, Solaris and FreeBSD.
In this HowTo we will be using Linux distribution called Ubuntu.

Software used in this HowTo:

  • Ubuntu karmic
  • DavMail 3.6.2-904 [1]
  • Sun Java 6-16-0ubuntu1.9.04
  • Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (version 3 will also work)
  • Lightning-extension for Thunderbird


Installation

Install software needed to run DavMail:

# sudo apt-get install sun-java6-bin libswt-gtk-3.4-java libswt-gtk-3.4-jni

Go to http://davmail.sourceforge.net/ and download and install the Linux package.
For Debian/Ubuntu you install the .deb package as follows:

# sudo dpkg -i davmail_3.6.1-853-1_all.deb 


Start it

The DavMail launcher should appear in the Applications -> Internet menu. Just click on it to configure it.
It will then stay hidden in your panel.


Configuration

DavMail

Pictures say more then 1000 words. So here's a screenshot of DavMail:

Image:Davmail.png


The only thing that had to be changed is OWA (Exchange) URL: which needs to be set to i.e.

http://your.corp.exchange.com/owa/

Just press Save when you changed that setting.


Thunderbird

eMail settings

Set up new account: Press

 Edit -> Account Settings -> New Account

Here's a visual example:

Image:Thunderbird-davmail1.png Image:Thunderbird-davmail2.png Image:Thunderbird-davmail4.png

The Incoming username field must be of form DOMAIN\username Image:Thunderbird-davmail5.png



Now go to Edit -> Account Settings Image:Thunderbird-davmail6.png



Chose Server Settings and change the IMAP port to 1143 Image:Thunderbird-davmail7.png



Add outgoing SMTP server - your Exchange server: Image:Thunderbird-davmail8.png Image:Thunderbird-davmail9.png


Now you can just press on the Get Mail icon in the main menu and type in your password.


Calendar setup

Install the Thunderbird Lightning extension.

# sudo apt-get install lightning-extension lightning-extension-locale-nb-no


  • Press the Calendar icon on the bottom left in your Thunderbird.

Image:Thunderbird-davmail10.png

  • Right click on the white space in the Calendar pane.
  • Chose New Calendar
  • Chose On the Network

Image:Thunderbird-davmail11.png

  • Chose CalDAV as the Format and type in following location with your own username, i.e:
http://localhost:1080/users/your.email@address.com/calendar

Image:Thunderbird-davmail12.png

  • Type in connection name, i.e. WORK, chose custom colour and your email address.

Image:Thunderbird-davmail13.png

  • In the next window, type in your username i.e. DOMAIN\username and your password.

Image:Thunderbird-davmail14.png


Address Book Lookups

  • Go to Edit -> Account Settings.
  • Chose Composition and Addressing

Image:Thunderbird-davmail15.png

  • In the Addressing field chose Use a different LDAP server:
  • Press Edit Directories
  • Chose Add and edit the General tab so it looks similar to this:

Image:Thunderbird-davmail16.png
Name is for example WORK and Bind DN: field my be of form DOMAIN\username

  • Go to Edit -> Preferenses
  • Press on the Composition icon and then on the Addressing tab.
  • Chose the name of your formely configured Directory Server, i.e. WORK.

Image:Thunderbird-davmail17.png


Links


That's all folks!

YazzY


Name (required):

Comment:


Thomas said ...
18:44, 15 January 2010 (CET)
vakkert.. thx
Wayne said ...
23:29, 18 March 2010 (CET)
Great job - wish I had found this earlier!