RE: [Evolution] wish-list (MS-Exchange support != MAPI support)

[mario santana autodesk com]

<

> If someone here has Exchange, I would love if they could:
>
>       1. Research what protocol Exchange uses to communicate with
>            Outlook clients.

It appears to be "simple" MSRPC calls. MSRPC is a (surprise!)
bastardized DCE-RPC. The steps to re would be:

a) implement dce-rpc. There is at least one open implementation
out there, but it's not free. I don't know how picky you guys are
with licensing (I hope *very*) but maybe if the exchange stuff
were shipped separately... IANAL.

b) bastardize dce-rpc until the endpoint mapper works with 
msrpc. This sounds like tedious work, including getting really
friendly with a good sniffer.

c) re the rpc's spewed by outlook and exchange. Someone with
MSVC++ libs, headers and docs could probably go a long way down
this road.

If it sounds like a large project, that's because it is.

>       2. Whether it is true or not that Exchange also supports
>            XML-RPC these days.

I'm fairly sure 5.5 does not, but I can't speak for anything
else.

>       3. Whether it is possible to write a plugin in the Windows
>            side that would just expose the Exchange internals trough
>            CORBA, XML-RPC or any other standard protocol.

Laziness is a virtue. Not only is this possible, but it would be
about a gabillion times easier than trying to re outlook/exchange
msrpc, not to mention legal in the US. Three approaches I can think
of:

a) write an exchange plugin. This would be fast, easy and
robust, but you'd have to get the exchange admin to install
it.

b) write a middleman server. A windows box uses MS libs to talk
to exchange, but has to take care of things like multiple sessions
and multiple users, etc.

c) write an API exposer. This would be fast, easy and robust,
but useless, as it means that a windows box would have to be
up for each person wanting to access it. (In which case the user
may as well use outlook.)

b) and c) may not be very different. I've only really gotten as
far as deciding that reversing msrpc was more work than it's worth.
I've rechanneled my get-ms-off-my-desk energies towards getting
my boss to let me NOT do outlook calendaring. We'll see.

There is one other alternative which I haven't fully explored
because I don't know enough about exchange. The three must-have
functionalities of exchange are email, addressing, and calendars.
I say "must-have" because these are what keeps outlook on the desks
of most people who don't want it there (in my experience.) Email
could be done with pop/imap, and addressing with ldap. Calendaring,
I don't know. But maybe there's a way to look this stuff up via
ldap or imap. Public folders are available via imap, I know. Maybe
xml-rpc, like miguel says above.

Anyway, I hope this helps. I'd love to pitch in with some coding for
this, but won't have time for a few months yet.

good luck, and keep up the good work,
.mario
--
mario d santana systems architect autodesk internet group
founder el orangutan purveyors of fine monkeys since 1975
http://www.2ndset.net/~santana mario santana autodesk com
didn't i buy a 1951 packard from you last march in cairo?