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 Microsoft 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 6.12 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 addon package, it can be installed using the operating systems package manager. This will extract the package and configure the integration with Open-Xchange Server.
For Debian based systems:
dpkg -i open-xchange-usm_<version>_all.deb
For SLES or RHEL systems:
rpm -i open-xchange-usm-<version>.noarch.rpm
Move the database update task configuration file to another directory before proceeding with the installation. Only tasks mentioned at this file will be executed. Since the new EAS/USM tasks are not core functionality they are not contained in this file. This step is not required with Open-Xchange Server 6.16 or later
mv /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/updatetasks.cfg /root
Now the Open-Xchange groupware and admin service needs to be restarted:
/etc/init.d/open-xchange-groupware restart /etc/init.d/open-xchange-admin restart
The USM package provides some additional database update tasks, it is required to re-run these update tasks after the installation. This is done by resetting the database version of the Open-Xchange database which will trigger all relevant update tasks up to the most current database version. Database update tasks that have already been completed in the past will not be executed again. You only need to run this command for one context of each database schema. This step is not required with Open-Xchange Server 6.16 or later
/opt/open-xchange/sbin/resetversion -v 33 -c 1
Move the database update task configuration file back to its original directory. This step is not required with Open-Xchange Server 6.16 or later
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 these two configuration files:
/opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/usm.properties /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/eas.properties
Make sure that the Open-Xchange Server URL is set properly in usm.properties. This needs to be the machine which provides the web interface. Usually, this is localhost, as the webserver and Open-Xchange run on the same machine.
com.openexchange.usm.ox.url=http://localhost/ajax/
Documentation about the configuration parameters can be found inside the configuration files. If you change any attribute at the configuration files, the Open-Xchange groupware service needs to be restarted.
/etc/init.d/open-xchange-groupware restart
Apache Configuration
Mobile devices supporting ActiveSync use a special URL to communicate with an ActiveSync enabled Open-Xchange 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 Open-Xchange Server is running on the same machine like the webserver. Please refer the Open-Xchange administration documentation for more information about Apache configuration. Please restart apache after performing the configuration change.
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Enabling ActiveSync for user accounts
In order to use synchronization through ActiveSync, this feature needs to be activated for user accounts. You can either activate it for specific users or a whole context.
Activating ActiveSync for specific users:
/opt/open-xchange/sbin/changeuser -c 1 -A oxadmin -P admin_password -u testuser --access-usm on --access-active-sync on
Activating ActiveSync for a whole context:
/opt/open-xchange/sbin/changecontext -c 1 -A oxadminmaster -P admin_master_password --access-usm on --access-active-sync on
Log files and issue tracking
When facing problems with synchronization, there are several ways to get more information than provided via device or platform specific error codes.
Open-Xchange Server logfile
By default, the log output is non verbose. Only severe errors will be logged. To enable a more detailed log output, the logging mechanism needs to be configured. This depends on the used mechanism.
Commons Logging
This is the default logging mechanism. If the Open-Xchange Server log output is written to var/log/open-xchange/open-xchange.log it's an indicator that this mechanism is in use. To make the log output more verbose, add the following parameter:
vim /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/file-logging.properties [...] com.openexchange.usm.level=FINE
This will enable a software debug log for all components using USM, including EAS after restarting Open-Xchange Server.
Log4j
If the package open-xchange-log4j is installed, Open-Xchange Server will log via a UDP network socket. In most cases a syslog daemon is listening to this socket and will write the log data to a platform specif file like /var/log/syslog. To make the log output more verbose, add the following parameter:
vim /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/log4j.xml
[...]
<category name="com.openexchange.usm">
<level value="DEBUG"/>
<appender-ref ref="SERVER_LOG"/>
</category>
Please note that the XML syntax must be correct. This will enable a software debug log for all components using USM, including EAS after restarting Open-Xchange Server.
EAS debug logfile
While the generic Open-Xchange Server log file will keep track on errors reported by the software components, the EAS debug log file will print all data transfered to the device as XML. Please note: this log file may contain confidential data about the users personal groupware objects. Make sure that no unauthorized access to those log files is possible in order to maintain privacy. Change the configuration file accordingly and set a output path which can only accessed by authorized persons.
vim /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/eas.xml [...] com.openexchange.usm.eas.debug_log=/tmp/EAS-debug.log
This will enable a XML based debug log for all EAS connections, after restarting Open-Xchange Server.
Network traffic
When using unencrypted connections between the device and USM and USM and Open-Xchange Server (not recommended), it's possible to analyze the network traffic with tools like ngrep or wireshark. When using encrypted data connections using SSL, the transfered data can be decrypted using the corresponding private key. Please note that there are two network streams, one from the device to USM (external) and one from USM to OX (internal).
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. This step is not required with Open-Xchange Server 6.16 or later
mv /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/updatetasks.cfg /root
Restart the Open-Xchange groupware and admin service:
/etc/init.d/open-xchange-groupware restart /etc/init.d/open-xchange-admin restart
The USM package may provides some additional database update tasks, it is required to re-run these update tasks after the update. This is done by resetting the database version of the Open-Xchange database which will trigger all relevant update tasks up to the most current database version. Database update tasks that have already been completed in the past will not be executed again. You only need to run this command for one context of each database schema. This step is not required with Open-Xchange Server 6.16 or later
/opt/open-xchange/sbin/resetversion -v 33 -c 1
Move the file updatetasks.cfg back to its original directory. This step is not required with Open-Xchange Server 6.16 or later
mv /root/updatetasks.cfg /opt/open-xchange/etc/groupware/
On the first login of a user all required database tables will be created or updated.
Bug-Reporting
Please report bugs via the Open-Xchange Bugzilla:
Direct link to Open-Xchange Bugzilla
- Product: OXtender for Business Mobility