Guest Paul (MVP) Posted February 8, 2008 Report Posted February 8, 2008 Here's something REALLY cool... Z-Push ... is an implementation of Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol which is used 'over-the-air' for multi platform active sync devices, including Windows Mobile and active sync used on Ericsson and Nokia phones. Open source Z-Push enables any PHP-based groupware package to become fully syncable with any ActiveSync-compliant device. Being an opensource project under the GPL, it allows developers to add their own backend so that Z-Push can communicate with their groupware solution. Currently, Z-Push is available with only four backends: the IMAP and the maildir backend for e-mail synchronisation, the vCard backend for contact synchronisation and one for the commercial Zarafa package which is sold by allowing full synchronization of E-mail, Calendar and Contacts. We expect that other backends arise in the near future as the opensource community gets to grips with the new possibilities. So what does this mean? To see what Z-Push was all about, I installed it on my test server. It's PHP, and I simply uploaded the directory to my server, tweaked the config file, added the required .htaccess and it was ready to rock. It's recommended that Z-Push points at an IMAP server on the same box, but I thought i'd do something a bit different, so I pointed it to GMail's IMAP servers :D The result? Exchange Server ActiveSync Push GMail! It worked straight away, and synced my mails. But did push work? To find out, I sent an email from my main email account to my gmail account. From hitting 'Send' in Outlook to the mail appearing on my device took 11 SECONDS! I'd say it worked :) If you're looking to hook Server ActiveSync Push Technology into your groupware, then z-push is well worth a look! P
Guest sjeemsnl Posted February 8, 2008 Report Posted February 8, 2008 Here's something REALLY cool... So what does this mean? To see what Z-Push was all about, I installed it on my test server. It's PHP, and I simply uploaded the directory to my server, tweaked the config file, added the required .htaccess and it was ready to rock. It's recommended that Z-Push points at an IMAP server on the same box, but I thought i'd do something a bit different, so I pointed it to GMail's IMAP servers :) The result? Exchange Server ActiveSync Push GMail! It worked straight away, and synced my mails. But did push work? To find out, I sent an email from my main email account to my gmail account. From hitting 'Send' in Outlook to the mail appearing on my device took 11 SECONDS! I'd say it worked :D If you're looking to hook Server ActiveSync Push Technology into your groupware, then z-push is well worth a look! P Hey there Paul this sounds very nice.. Any hints on what to config in the configs.. I just could not figure it out just now.. Might be my fault and I'd better look in the morning or the docs arent clear... Erm and I was pointing at the GMail imap settings :D hope you can help :D grtz, Sjeems
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted February 8, 2008 Report Posted February 8, 2008 Voila! My config... // The data providers that we are using (see configuration below) $BACKEND_PROVIDER = "BackendIMAP"; // ************************ // BackendIMAP settings // ************************ // Defines the server to which we want to connect // recommended to use local servers only define('IMAP_SERVER', 'imap.gmail.com'); // connecting to default port (143) define('IMAP_PORT', 993); // best cross-platform compatibility (see http://php.net/imap_open for options) define('IMAP_OPTIONS', '/notls/norsh/ssl');[/code] P
Guest sjeemsnl Posted February 8, 2008 Report Posted February 8, 2008 Wow that's what I would like to call good service :) Now lets hope our providers will do the same here in holland I we ask them for some info :D thanks paul, Im going to try it now! Will post results!! grtz, Sjeems
Guest sjeemsnl Posted February 9, 2008 Report Posted February 9, 2008 (edited) Mmmm I used to be living a .Net and so Microsoft programmers life...and this Debian server won't forgive me :) I'll try later.. Might have some luck with some help from friends, and hey I might learn some things :D Darn I was happy about this.. :D thanks! grtz Sjeems Edited February 9, 2008 by sjeemsnl
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted February 9, 2008 Report Posted February 9, 2008 Don't forget you need php-imap (apt-get install php-imap IIRC). Check out dotdeb while you're at it too, awesome :) P
Guest rthomas Posted February 11, 2008 Report Posted February 11, 2008 I have uploaded it to my root, but being a noob I am not sure about the settings for config.php and cant even find the httpd.conf file. Anyone like to expand on the installation help file for an idiot like me :) Thanks
Guest touficjohn Posted February 13, 2008 Report Posted February 13, 2008 Hmm this would be fantastic! Though is there a way of adding more than one exchange server in activesync?
Guest Monolithix Posted February 14, 2008 Report Posted February 14, 2008 Nope...WM can currently only support one exchange server at a time...
Guest touficjohn Posted February 15, 2008 Report Posted February 15, 2008 (edited) Its fantastic! I set up z-push on my server (took less than 10mins). Got the WM5 emulator from the M$ website. E-mails (not stored locally) arrived in seconds!!!! If only there was a way to be able to sync with more than one exchange server at a time! Surely there has got to be some sort of workaround? Edited February 15, 2008 by touficjohn
Guest PayableOnDeath Posted February 16, 2008 Report Posted February 16, 2008 after much playing around i managed to get php recompiled right so that Z-push would work and its working great :) If only there was a way to be able to sync with more than one exchange server at a time! Surely there has got to be some sort of workaround? I hope someone would be able to sort that as it would be very use full :D
Guest Mr.Clark Posted February 19, 2008 Report Posted February 19, 2008 Nope...WM can currently only support one exchange server at a time... Ah, so if you currently have an ActiveSync Exchange account AND a Gmail IMAP account, you can't turn the Gmail one into a second Push account? Dang.
Guest PayableOnDeath Posted March 3, 2008 Report Posted March 3, 2008 anyone getting a problem where it Marks Every email as read? its sending to the phone fine, with sec's of the email how ever its not notifying me of the new email and marks it as been read :S
Guest Leaskovski Posted March 26, 2008 Report Posted March 26, 2008 Ive got a question about this. Is the gmail account settings set for the server or is it still set on the phone? I see that you have to tell the server that you are using IMAP and the gmail server names. The reason for asking is... could you in theory have 1 server that is setup for gmail and then have multiple users using that server to get their gmail via push?
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted March 26, 2008 Report Posted March 26, 2008 You pass the credentials in as normal. P
Guest Leaskovski Posted March 27, 2008 Report Posted March 27, 2008 Interesting! Well i got an ubuntu desktop machine up and running last night and got Apache and Php running on it. I got it working according to their pdf install doc, but the imap stuff isnt pulling yet. I think i need to install php-imap, but it got past my bed time. My theory is that someone should set a server up for gmail imap and then make it public for free :D Somehow i dont think my sky dsl connection would handle it very well for a public one :(
Guest PayableOnDeath Posted March 27, 2008 Report Posted March 27, 2008 Interesting! Well i got an ubuntu desktop machine up and running last night and got Apache and Php running on it. I got it working according to their pdf install doc, but the imap stuff isnt pulling yet. I think i need to install php-imap, but it got past my bed time. My theory is that someone should set a server up for gmail imap and then make it public for free :( Somehow i dont think my sky dsl connection would handle it very well for a public one :D yes you need imap, php-imap and compile php with imap support could do a public one but as word go around am sure the bandwidth bills would go through the roof :(
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted March 27, 2008 Report Posted March 27, 2008 Check out dotdeb. Add their repositories, the installing the latest and greatest of all the bits you need is a piece of cake! apt-get php-imap = job done :D (/me loves dotdeb so much he's donated) P
Guest Leaskovski Posted March 27, 2008 Report Posted March 27, 2008 Hmm, seen as Gmail got into bed with the apple and iphone guys, they should set one of these badgers up on their servers :D I wish! Speaking of gmail imap, how does it handle all the funky folders/labels and stuff?
Guest Leaskovski Posted March 27, 2008 Report Posted March 27, 2008 (edited) Check out dotdeb. Add their repositories, the installing the latest and greatest of all the bits you need is a piece of cake! apt-get php-imap = job done :D (/me loves dotdeb so much he's donated) P Nope, that doesnt work. I added them to the source list and tried that package and it said it doesnt exist. Browsing their repo I cant see that in there. :( Looks like im gonna have to go for a manual compile. Edit: Thats because its not php-imap, its phpx-imap, where x is the version of php you are running. In my case 5. God knows if this is working. I have now installed that package but i dont know if it is working properly. I run the test according to the install doc where you go to a url and it asks for your username and password, but it doesnt return the text that it should do (according to the doc) Edited March 27, 2008 by Leaskovski
Guest Leaskovski Posted March 27, 2008 Report Posted March 27, 2008 (edited) Right, here is how to install onto an Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop pc (this is for me when i come to rebuild) I will edit this as time goes on and i get it working with my install of ubuntu! (Remember its case sensitive linux!) 1) sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list edit the file so that you uncomment all the deb entries (this maybe unrequired!) 2) sudo apt-get update 3) sudo apt-get install apache2 4) sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start 5) sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5 6) sudo apt-get install php5-imap 7) sudo apt-get install ca-certificates 8) Restart the machine. 9) sudo gedit /var/www/phpinfo.php add the following text... <?php phpinfo(); ?> Now when you visit http://localhost/phpinfo.php it should tell you that php is installed and running, this also shows that apache is running! 10) Visit the Z-Push website and download the tar file to your desktop. Open up a terminal session and set the dir to your desktop (cd Desktop) 11) sudo tar zxvf z-push-1.0.tar.gz -C /var/www 12) sudo gedit /var/www/z-push/config.php Find the following line and change it to look like... // The data providers that we are using (see configuration below) $BACKEND_PROVIDER = "BackendIMAP"; Find the IMAP section and change it to the following... // ************************ // BackendIMAP settings // ************************ // Defines the server to which we want to connect // recommended to use local servers only define('IMAP_SERVER', 'imap.googlemail.com'); // connecting to default port (143) define('IMAP_PORT', 993); // best cross-platform compatibility (see http://php.net/imap_open for options) define('IMAP_OPTIONS', '/notls/norsh/ssl'); // overwrite the "from" header if it isn't set when sending emails // options: 'username' - the username will be set (usefull if your login is equal to your emailaddress) // 'domain' - the value of the "domain" field is used // '@mydomain.com' - the username is used and the given string will be appended define('IMAP_DEFAULTFROM', 'username'); 13) sudo chmod 777 /var/www/z-push/state 14) sudo chmod 755 /var/www/z-push/state 15) sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www/z-push/state 16) sudo gedit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf Edit this file so that it reads the following... Alias /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync /var/www/z-push/index.php php_flag magic_quotes_gpc off php_flag register_globals off php_flag magic_quotes_runtime off php_flag short_open_tag on 17) sudo touch /var/www/z-push/debug.txt 18) sudo chmod 777 /var/www/z-push/debug.txt 19) sudo apt-get install php-pear 20) sudo pear install Mail 21) Restart your machine and see what happens! Visit the following website... http://localhost/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync Whack your details in and hopefully it should come back with a message about WGET! :D Edited April 1, 2008 by Leaskovski
Guest PayableOnDeath Posted March 27, 2008 Report Posted March 27, 2008 18) Restart your machine and see what happens! -Im stuck at this point. At the moment, i get a loop when asking for the loppon details when i visit the following website... http://localhost/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync More to follow! :D pop in your Gmail login details and it should give the following message GET not supported This is the z-push location and can only be accessed by Microsoft ActiveSync-capable devices. if you then it should be ok then try it from your device
Guest Leaskovski Posted March 28, 2008 Report Posted March 28, 2008 pop in your Gmail login details and it should give the following message GET not supported This is the z-push location and can only be accessed by Microsoft ActiveSync-capable devices. if you then it should be ok then try it from your device Yeah, i did stick my details in and it loops with that data. This is what I am stuck on. I have a post going on the z-push forum to try and fix it.
Guest PayableOnDeath Posted March 28, 2008 Report Posted March 28, 2008 ah right am with you now lol whats the debug log show ?
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