AppSuite:OX Mail

OX Mail (In Production)

OX Mail is a native mobile phone app built specifically for smartphones users that also have a valid OX App Suite account. The app is designed to lets users access their OX App Suite email environment directly from a native mobile phone client.

Key features

• Easy to use start-up wizard. • Standard folders plus the ability to create folders and sub- folders. • Standard compose fields such as To, Subject, Cc, Bcc and Attachments. • Received email attachments can be displayed. • Contact integration of local contacts and OX App Suite address book contacts. • Support for PUSH notifications (available only if the OX App Suite Server provides the corresponding push functionality). Note: PUSH notifications require a server side OX App Suite middleware plugin. This plugin is only available for a limited number of email servers. Dovecot Pro is supported out of the box. • Custom mail signature.

Pricing & Availability

This email app is available for both iOS and Android and can be downloaded for free from the corresponding App Stores. The availability of the various clients depends on the approval process of the supplying provider.

Clients for iOS and Android will be made available from the App Store and Google Play. The availability of the various clients will be confirmed by Open-Xchange via the usual communication channels.

The Open-Xchange Middleware components can be downloaded from the respective download repositories.

Please contact Open-Xchange Sales for further information and pricing details.

Requirements

You will find the requirements under OX Mail and Platform Requirements

Server-side Installation and Configuration

This chapter describes how the backend components of OX Mail are installed and configured on the server.

Prerequisites

• Open-Xchange Server v7.6.2 and above (open-xchange-core)
• Grizzly HTTP connector (open-xchange-grizzly), see AppSuite:Grizzly for details, with Comet support enabled in grizzly.properties
• Valid Push-Certificates / API keys for cloud-based notifications, see configuration below
• Enabled Hazelcast for inter-OX-communication, see AppSuite:Running_a_cluster for details

Available packages

Open-Xchange Mail is available with the following backend packages:

• open-xchange-mail - The main server components for OX Mail ????? Do we need this really?
• open-xchange-mail-comet - Provides the Push interface via long-polling for the desktop clients ????? Do we need this really???
• open-xchange-mail-restricted - Restricted components, including prerequisites for cloud-based push notifications ???? Do we need this really?

Installation on the server varies depending on the underlying distribution; details are available in the following chapters.

Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 or CentOS 6

If not already done, add the following repositories to your Open-Xchange yum configuration:

[open-xchange-backend] name=Open-Xchange-backend baseurl=https://software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/backend/RHEL6/ gpgkey=https://software.open-xchange.com/oxbuildkey.pub enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 metadata_expire=0m

[open-xchange-backend-updates] name=Open-Xchange-backend-updates baseurl=https://LDBUSER:LDBPASSWORD@software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/backend/updates/RHEL6/ gpgkey=https://software.open-xchange.com/oxbuildkey.pub enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 metadata_expire=0m

[open-xchange-mail] name=Open-Xchange-mail baseurl=https://LDBUSER:LDBPASSWORD@software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/mail/RHEL6/ gpgkey=https://software.open-xchange.com/oxbuildkey.pub enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 metadata_expire=0m

and run

$ yum update
$ yum install open-xchange-mail open-xchange-mail open-xchange-mail-restricted

Debian GNU/Linux 6.0

If not already done, add the following repositories to your Open-Xchange apt configuration:

deb https://software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/backend/DebianSqueeze /

deb https://LDBUSER:LDBPASSWORD@software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/backend/updates/DebianSqueeze /

deb https://LDBUSER:LDBPASSWORD@software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/mail/DebianSqueeze /

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install open-xchange-mail open-xchange-mail open-xchange-mail-restricted

Debian GNU/Linux 7.0

If not already done, add the following repositories to your Open-Xchange apt configuration:

deb https://software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/backend/DebianWheezy /

deb https://LDBUSER:LDBPASSWORD@software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/backend/updates/DebianWheezy /

deb https://LDBUSER:LDBPASSWORD@software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/mail/DebianWheezy /

and run

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install open-xchange-mail open-xchange-mail open-xchange-mail-restricted

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

Add the package repository using zypper if not already present:

$ zypper ar https://software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/backend/SLES11 backend

$ zypper ar https://LDBUSER:LDBPASSWORD@software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/backend/updates/SLES11 backend-updates

$ zypper ar https://LDBUSER:LDBPASSWORD@software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/stable/mail/SLES11 mail

and run

$ zypper ref
$ zypper in open-xchange-mail open-xchange-mail open-xchange-mail-restricted

Configuration

The following gives an overview about the most important settings to enable file synchronization via OX Mail, especially when it comes to real-time Push notifications for the client applications.

All settings regarding the OX Mail backend component are located in the configuration file mail.properties. The default configuration should be sufficient for a basic "up-and-running" setup (with the exception of defining the Push certificates and API keys for cloud-based client notifications, see next chapters). Please refer to the inline documentation of the configuration file for more advanced options.

Push via Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)

The OX Mail application for Android devices is able to receive Push notifications from the Open-Xchange Server via Google Cloud Messaging (GCM). To issue those Push messages, the backend needs to be provided with a suitable API key for the corresponding Android client application. The API key is included in the restricted components installation package open-xchange-mail-restricted for the "vanilla" Android client application. Alternatively, the key can be specified directly in the mail.properties configuration file:

# Specifies the API key of the server application. Required if 
# "com.openexchange.mail.events.gcm.enabled" is "true" and the package 
# containing the restricted mail components is not installed.
com.openexchange.mail.events.gcm.key=

Push via GCM can be enabled via:

# Enables or disables push event notifications to clients using the Google
# Cloud Messaging (GCM) service. This requires a valid configuration for the 
# GCM API key, see options below. Defaults to "false". 
com.openexchange.mail.events.gcm.enabled=true

Please note that push via GCM needs to be enabled explicitly - also if open-xchange-mail-restricted is installed.

Push via Apple Push Notification service (APNs)

The OX Mail application for iOS and Mac OS devices is able to receive Push notifications from the Open-Xchange Server via Apple Push Notification service (APNs). To issue those Push messages, the backend needs to be provided with a suitable key store container file (PKCS #12) containing the APNs certificate and keys. Note that the Mac OS desktop client and the iOS mobile client are served separately with different certificates, so that both needs to be configured independently. The required certificates are already included in the restricted components installation package open-xchange-mail-restricted for the "vanilla" iOS and Mac OS client applications. Alternatively, the certificate can be specified directly in the mail.properties configuration file (the following only shows the setup for iOS). First, the path to the PKCS #12 container file needs to be specified at:

# Specifies the path to the local key store file (PKCS #12) containing the APNS 
# Certificate and keys for the iOS application, e.g. 
# "/opt/open-xchange/etc/mail-apns.p12". Required if 
# "com.openexchange.mail.events.apn.enabled" is "true" and the package 
# Containing the restricted mail components is not installed.
com.openexchange.mail.events.apn.ios.keystore=

This file is opened by the backend using the password as supplied via:

# Specifies the password used when creating the referenced key store containing
# The certificate of the iOS application. Note that blank or null passwords 
# are in violation of the PKCS #12 specifications. Required if 
# "com.openexchange.mail.events.apn.enabled" is "true" and the package 
# containing the restricted mail components is not installed.
com.openexchange.mail.events.apn.ios.password=

Configuration also allows to switch between development and production environments, however, this setting should be true normally:

# Indicates which APNS service is used when sending push notifications to iOS
# devices. A value of "true" will use the production service, a value of 
# "false" the sandbox service. Defaults to "true".
com.openexchange.mail.events.apn.ios.production=true

The OX backend contacts the APNs servers from time to time to get informed about clients no longer reachable clients where the applications was uninstalled. The interval can be defined with the following setting:

# Configures the interval between queries to the APN feedback service for the
# subscribed iOS devices. The value can be defined using units of measurement: 
# "D" (=days), "W" (=weeks) and "H" (=hours). Defaults to "1D" (one day). 
# Leaving this parameter empty disables the feedback queries on this node. 
# Since each received feedback is processed cluster-wide, only one node in the 
# cluster should be enabled here. 
com.openexchange.mail.events.apn.ios.feedbackQueryInterval=1D

Please note that if you have multiple backend nodes in the cluster, it's recommended that only one node be configured to contact the feedback query service. Finally, Push notifications via APN for iOS can be enabled via:

# Enables or disables push event notifications to clients using the Apple Push
# Notification service (APNS) for Mac OS devices. This requires a valid 
# configuration for the APNS certificate and keys, see either options below, 
# or install the restricted components packages for mail. Defaults to 
# "false". 
com.openexchange.mail.events.apn.ios.enabled=false

As stated above, configuration for Push notifications via APN for the Mac OS desktop application is configured similarly; the relevant options are prefixed with com.openexchange.mail.events.apn.macos. Please also note that push via APNS needs to be enabled explicitly - also if open-xchange-mail-restricted is installed.

Further Configuration

• The backend component of OX Mail supplies the clients with various hyperlinks, e.g. deep-links to files and folders in the groupware web interface or an URL to the online help. In order to point to the suitable web interface, please ensure that the correct UI web path is configured via com.openexchange.UIWebPath located in server.properties.
• As already mentioned above, the backend relies on the Comet component of the Grizzly http connector for sending push notifications to the desktop clients. Therefore, com.openexchange.http.grizzly.hasCometEnabled needs to be set to true in grizzly.properties.

Enabling OX Mail for Users

OX Mail is enabled for all users that have the capability com.openexchange.capability.mobile_mail_app

More details about capabilities can be found at AppSuite:Capabilities. Furthermore, this capability can be defined in a more granular way using the Config Cascade as described at ConfigCascade.

IMPORTANT: By default, the capability for the OX Mail app is set to false for all users. It can be changed by editing the corresponding capability in the "permissions.properties" config file, or if you need a more fine grained selection of enabled users, you can use the well known provisioning tools / config cascade.

Installation of the Clients

The OX Mail App is available via the different App Stores:

• iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/ox-mail/id798570177?mt=8

• Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openexchange.mail.vanilla

Client Configuration and Deployment

The user needs to enter the server URL and provide his username and password.

After the initial synchronization is completed, all further changes are synchronized instantly across all devices.