OX6:OXtender for Business Mobility Installation Guide
Open-Xchange OXtender for Business Mobility
Components
With the OXtender for Business Mobility, Open-Xchange also introduces the Universal Synchronization Module (USM). This module provides a framework for synchronization protocols such as Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) or other services building on this foundation. USM acts as a layer between the Open-Xchange HTTP API and the synchronization protocol. It handles synchronization specific tasks like conflict management. The synchronization stack (USM) and protocol implementation (EAS) are shipped as OSGi bundles and run as a plug-in of an Open-Xchange instance.
Component Overview
USM, EAS and OX work together as components. This is a general outline about how these components interact.
When the device initiates a synchronization through ActiveSync, it contacts the webserver using the URL /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync via HTTP/s. This URL is forwarded to the Open-Xchange application server where the corresponding servlet is offered by the EAS component. The EAS component then uses USM to initiate a connection to the OX HTTP API and exchanges groupware data. In all cases, USM works as an client to the Open-Xchange HTTP API. It also uses some database tables which are accessed through the Open-Xchange SQL interface to store metadata like synchronization status. The same component stack is used to transport groupware data back to the device.
Requirements
Since the OXtender for Business Mobility is a server plug-in based on the OSGi Framework it can be added to an existing Open-Xchange installation very easily. Open-Xchange Server 6.10 or later is required to operate this extension. The OXtender for Business Mobility uses the resources and services offered by the Open-Xchange server, no additional software or configuration is required.
Please Note: To get in favor of the latest minor features and bugfixes, you need to have a valid license. The article Updating OX-Packages explains how that can be done.
Download
Follow this link to download the Installation package and the Release Notes. (The LDB credentials have to be provided)
Follow this link to download the User Manuals in different languages.
Installation of the OXtender for Business Mobility
New Installation
After downloading the packages, they can be installed using the operating systems package manager. For example:
dpkg -i open-xchange-usm_<version>_all.deb
This will extract the package and configure the integration to the Open-Xchange server.
Move the file /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/updatetasks.cfg to another directory before proceeding with the installation.
mv /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/updatetasks.cfg /root
Now the Open-Xchange groupware and admin service needs to be shut down:
/etc/init.d/open-xchange-groupware stop /etc/init.d/open-xchange-admin stop
Since the USM package provides some additional database tables, it is required to re-run several updatetasks after the installation. This is done by resetting the database version of the OX database which will trigger all relevant updatetasks. Note that the database name for Open-Xchange Server mentioned in this example can be different, depending on your setup.
mysql> USE oxdatabase_6; mysql> UPDATE version SET version=33;
Start the Open-Xchange groupware and admin service again:
/etc/init.d/open-xchange-groupware start /etc/init.d/open-xchange-admin start
Move the file updatetasks.cfg back to its original directory.
mv /root/updatetasks.cfg /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/
On the first login of a user after the restart, all required database tables will be created.
Configuration
Open-Xchange configuration
The configuration for USM and the EAS protocol can be found in the two configuration files:
/opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/usm.properties /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/eas.properties
Make sure that the following parameter is set properly:
In usm.properties
com.openexchange.usm.ox.url=http://your.ox.server/ajax/
Documentation about the configuration parameters can be found inside the configuration file. After the installation is complete, the Open-Xchange groupware needs to be restarted, after that USM and EAS services are available.
/etc/init.d/open-xchange-groupware restart
Apache Configuration
Mobile devices supporting ActiveSync use a special URL to communicate with the ActiveSync enabled server. This URL needs to be forwarded to the Open-Xchange ActiveSync servlet. When using Apache 2 and mod_proxy_ajp, this servlet can simply be added to the webservers proxy_ajp configuration:
ProxyPass /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync ajp://127.0.0.1:8009/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync smax=0 ttl=60 retry=5
The example assumes that the Open-Xchange server is running on the same machine like the webserver. Please refer the Open-Xchange administrator documentation for more information about Apache configuration. Please restart apache after performing the configuration change.
Upgrade from a previous version
It is very important to know that updating your installation requires a bit more than just installing the latest packages. Some additional tasks need to be executed by the administrator to successfully upgrade the USM installation.
After downloading the packages, they can be installed using the operating systems package manager. For example:
dpkg -i open-xchange-usm_<version>_all.deb
This will extract the package and configure the integration to the Open-Xchange server. Please check the configuration files after applying an update for correct settings.
/opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/usm.properties /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/eas.properties
Move the file /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/updatetasks.cfg to another directory before starting the update procedure.
mv /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/updatetasks.cfg /root
Now the Open-Xchange groupware and admin service needs to be shut down:
/etc/init.d/open-xchange-groupware stop /etc/init.d/open-xchange-admin stop
The next step is to purge some database tables, as the USM installer is not able to do this step on his own at the moment. To do so please execute the following mysql commands. Afterwards you need to re-run the updatetasks once again. This is done by resetting the database version of the OX database which will trigger all relevant updatetasks. Note that the database name for Open-Xchange Server mentioned in this example can be different, depending on your setup.
mysql> USE oxdatabase_6; mysql> DROP TABLE USMSessionFields; mysql> DROP TABLE sequence_usmSessionId; mysql> DROP TABLE USMDataStorage; mysql> DROP TABLE usmIdMapping; mysql> DROP TABLE sequence_usmIdMapping; mysql> DROP TABLE easUIDMapping; mysql> DROP TABLE USMSession; mysql> UPDATE version SET version=33;
Start the Open-Xchange groupware and admin service again:
/etc/init.d/open-xchange-groupware start /etc/init.d/open-xchange-admin start
Move the file updatetasks.cfg back to its original directory.
mv /root/updatetasks.cfg /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/