Exchange Web Services EWS with Zimbra

[Leblan]

Has anyone been successful in connecting Aqua Mail to a Zimbra server 8.60 using EWS.

Mine always fail at ErrorFolderNotFound.

Thanks.

Eric

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Aqua's EWS code is based on Microsoft's official EWS documentation.

We have not tested with Zimbra, but Kerio, another serer that also claims that their server "can do EWS" - is badly broken, even the most basic EWS commands do not work.

The only third party (non-Microsoft) EWS implementation which works (that I'm aware of) is Amazon Work Mail. They had a bug or two, but they actually listened to feedback (mine included) and got those bugs fixed.

[Leblan]

Many thanks. Does not look too promising at this stage. We had a 403 which we solved but are now stuck at ErrorFolderNotFound, even though the folder is correct on the server :(hostname:8443/EWS/Exchange.asmx)
Does Aqua Mail has the same default?

Thanks
Eric

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: /EWS/Exchange.asmx

This is the *transport* (protocol, endpoint) for EWS, the URL that apps use to make EWS requests (and get responses).

I'm sure there is nothing wrong with that - the app is able to issue those requests (commands) and get back data from the server.

ErrorFolderNotFound means that the *implementation* of some EWS command in Zimbra which is somehow wrong or non-standard, this is a standard EWS error code, one of many, a response to an application request (command).

One thing that comes to mind is that during account setup, Aqua needs to "map out" the "special" folders on the server - sent, deleted, drafts, spam.

In EWS it's possible to address these by a "distinguished name" (i.e. doesn't matter what the actual unique folder IDs, a "special" name like "sentbox" means "*the* sent folder"). And I'd guess that Zimbra is somehow unable to handle that.

If you're interested, you can turn on the app's debug log (please see a help link in my signature) and then you'll see both the command and the server's response.

--

In general, my impression is that with the exception of Amazon who actually implemented the whole EWS spec (or almost) -- other third party implementation only care for compatibility with Outlook (for Mac I guess which also uses EWS, not sure about the Windows version).

[Leblan]

Many thanks. Will do some further testing. Eric

[Grant Root]

I'm coming late to the party, but...

Kostya mentions AquaMail's EWS code. But I don't think Zimbra implements EWS, but rather EAS (Exchange ActiveSync).

I have been able to create an "Exchange ActiveSync" account on my Android phone and allow Samsung Email to sync with Zimbra. I can alternatively create a "(Gmail) Exchange" account and allow Gmail to sync with Zimbra. So I think Zimbra does EAS just fine. But I haven't seen any evidence that it does EWS.

I don't know if there are plans for AquaMail to support EAS (I believe it requires a license from Microsoft), but I'm sure it would be useful for users of other systems besides Zimbra.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

1 - Zimbra does support EWS

https://wiki.zimbra.com/wiki/Exchange_Web_Services_EWS

And they only mention Outlook for Mac in their instructions.

Compare to Amazon for Work:

I was contacted by a user who was trying to use it with Aqua - found a bug or two - user reported them to Amazon.

Next I got an email from someone quite technical at Amazon and had a chance to discuss the issues, and Amazon actually fixed (most) of them.

Zimbra, Kerio - do they even care?

2 - Aqua Mail and ActiveSync

Yes there is a license fee and this just kills the whole idea.

[sriccio]

Hi,

Sorry to rise this topic again, but I've suggested to a customer which was looking for an EWS mail app on android, to try out Aqua Mail.

However it seems it's not compatible with the EWS implementation of our mail server (SmarterMail).
He can successfuly use EWS using his Outlook on Mac, but when trying to configure the same account on Aqua Mail, it got rejected with ErrorFolderNotFound.

After some debug it looks like Aqua Mail requests distinguishedIds for these folders:


2018.09.10 14:55:32.994 +0200   t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="inbox"
2018.09.10 14:55:32.994 +0200   t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="junkemail"
2018.09.10 14:55:32.994 +0200   t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="drafts"
2018.09.10 14:55:32.995 +0200   t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="sentitems"
2018.09.10 14:55:32.995 +0200   t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="deleteditems"
2018.09.10 14:55:32.995 +0200   t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="outbox"


However SmarterMail only returns success for inbox, drafts, sentitems.

junkemail, deleteditems and outbox are reported as not existing.

I've already posted about it in SmarterMail community forum, but I would like to ask:

If some distinguished folders (except inbox and sentitems, i would say) aren't returned by the server, shouldn't these be created locally on the app like some other clients are doing, instead of aborting the account configuration.

Also maybe after the accounts has been configured successfully, it maybe could be possible for the user to map manually some folders it found as these special "distinguished" folders.

Thanks for you for your reading

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Microsoft has extensive documentation on EWS.

If a server vendor claims that their product implements EWS - well, it means they need to really make it work not just "sort of".

Amazon did this. Aqua Mail works with Amazon Work Mail just fine (and while they had bugs, they were also interested in my feedback and fixed things).

Kerio did not. This vendor - from what you're describing - did not.

Well, we don't claim compat with Smarter Mail or Kerio or whatever. SmarterMail says they're compatible with EWS.

Maybe they mean "compatible with Outlook for Mac" but that's an entirely different claim.

Well?

[sriccio]

Hi,

Thank you for your answer. This makes sense.

I've asked about it in the SmarterMail community forums, but no answer so far

In the meantime, no much love for our android customers willing to use EWS

Cheers,
Sébastien