Set Up Thunderbird Against Exchange 2007

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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:

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:

Thunderbird-davmail1.png Thunderbird-davmail2.png Thunderbird-davmail4.png

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



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



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



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

Thunderbird-davmail10.png

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

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

Thunderbird-davmail12.png

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

Thunderbird-davmail13.png

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

Thunderbird-davmail14.png


Address Book Lookups

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

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:

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.

Thunderbird-davmail17.png


Links


That's all folks.
Marcin


<comments />

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!
sidai said ...
08:22, 12 January 2011 (CET)
Nice article, sometimes a user might experience problems with self signed certificates, You can overcome it by checking the link http://www.markuss.co.cc/2011/01/complete-how-to-setup-thunderbird-31x.html
Luc said ...
01:45, 23 February 2011 (CET)
Wow, everything works perfectly. That is a wonderful Tutorial. I'll make EZUNIX my first source of reference. Many thanks

Stacks said ...

<comment date="2012-04-20T01:18:19Z" name="Stacks"> Very nice tutorial and reference! I spent a whole day running through online docs and nothing quite worked with the global address book / ldap settings... once I came across this information, it worked like a charm! Thanks for putting this out there man </comment>

Lisa said ...

<comment date="2012-09-11T18:22:40Z" name="Lisa"> I wasn't able to use port 1080 for Caldav under Windows XP (already in use by something else apparently). Just changing it to 1081 worked although I do wonder if I will unknowingly create other issues by doing so. Still though - thanks so much for this article. Outlook client at work was such a pain :P </comment>