Oct
24
My office, in its infinite wisdom, decided that Microsoft Server 2003 was the best investment they could make. Well, I’m sure most of you understand why I think that’s probably the worst idea in the world but, on the bright side, at least I don’t have to use Outlook
I am using Evolution to connect to the Exchange Server and everything works just fine. As far as I know it is the ONLY program (Windows or *nix) that will work with Exchange, except for Outlook or Outlook Express. For those of you that have to deal with another of Microsoft’s joke of a product here is how you can use Evolution to access your mailbox.
In Evolution select Edit > Preferences > Accounts > New
- Identity: Set your basic information here. Name, email address, reply-to, etc.
- Receiving Email:
Server Type: “Microsoft Exchange”
Username: domain/username (ie; your windows domain and user account)
OWA URL: The URL for your office / domain webmail. (ie; https://webmail.domain.com/exchange/)
Authenticate: Use this to verify the information is correct for your system
Receiving Options: GAL / Active Directory settings. This is the local config that you’d use to setup Outlook on-site. (This is optional. Mainly used for company calendar and contacts.)
I have been using this for months now and I don’t have any trouble. Occasionally it complains about not being able to access the calendar or company contacts but I’m fairly sure that is the fault of the Exchange Server itself (it, as you might guess, is fairly unreliable).
I would much rather use Evolution to access my office email (and I also use it to retrieve my gmail and other accounts). Before I set this up I simply used the webmail interface. I refuse to use Outlook. I hope this is helpful and anyone else needing to connect to an Exchange Server can use a reliable Linux app to do it.
I’m sure this would be more helpful if I included some screenshots but I don’t have the time for that just now. Feedback is appreciated on how I can better outline the steps. It isn’t too difficult once you have the right information, but finding that is tricky sometimes.
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20 Responses to “Use Evolution with Microsoft Exchange : Ubuntu (6.06 / 6.10)”
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My company will do the same “intelligent” move in a couple of months.
Currently I use evolution and thunderbird to get my mail from the IMAP server.
Evolution is much faster then thunderbird but lacks good LDAP support.
I filed a bug yesterday on launchpad and I asked for escalation to rise the interest and sensibility in LDAP. (https://launchpad.net/bugs/94337)
do you use LDAP? how contacts are managed in MS Exch? Do you have also web access to mails? what’s the idea behind this “intelligent” proprietary closed source mail server called Exchange?
I appreciate if you can spare some more time to get back with some answers/feedback and status so far.
yawn - if I hear another person giving off about Exchange being crap and everyone should use Mac mail or some such.
Exchange & Outlook have their faults, but real people (ie. not you reading this probably) are more effective on Exchange.
Personally I use ubuntu & evolution and can feel techy and smug, but I wouldn’t force it on anyone.
Can I set up Evolution to retrieve Exchange webmail from home where I am not networked?
I don’t see Microsoft Exchange in the server types. Everywhere else I see talks about purchasing a connector. Can I connect to Exchange for free?
Doug - if you are using the default installation from Ubuntu it should be in there. You may want to check for the ‘evolution-exchange’ package and install that.
Thanks for the great tutorial! But I have a question:
“This is the local config that you’d use to setup Outlook on-site”
what does this mean? I always get “Error loading address book” when using gal. Any solution to this? Thanks!
Just got it. For my server, the GAL is the same as owa url w/o http://. Thanks!
Using Evolution on a laptop with Windows as OS, I can make a connection to the Microsoft Exchange Server and authenticate my account. No problems doing this and no error messages and/or warnings whatsoever. However, in my evolution program, I cannot see any email. I just have an empty (white) screen with no emails. Meanwhile, I continue receiving email and I can read them in Outlook. Has anybody enocountered this problem before?
Miguel
Does Evolution allow the facility to share or open shared calendars etc?
I get this error when I authenticate
“The Exchange server is not compatible with Exchange Connector.
The server is running Exchange 5.5. Exchange Connector supports Microsoft Exchange 2000 and 2003 only.d”
But I know I’m on Exchange 2003… any ideas
I’m having the same issue reported by Ed Guy. Evolution’s Exchange Connector worked fine with Exchange 2003, but refuses to connect to Exchange 2007, giving the error:
“The Exchange server is not compatible with Exchange Connector.
The server is running Exchange 5.5. Exchange Connector supports Microsoft Exchange 2000 and 2003 only.”
any ideas?
Hi, i’ve trying this many times, but unfortunatelly my web exchange mail is behind a rsa security logon page.. i wonder, are there someone have same problem, any advise?
thanks
dnaiel
Hi,
Great information. If I don’t have OWA on my Exchange server (5.5), what should I put on the OWA options?
Thanks
Hi, I have evolution working with outlook but i can’t see GAL.
What conector do you use for evolution and exchange 2003?
That’s an excellent implementation of the software. But for those who are web-based junkies, then maybe a better microsoft exchange alternative would be HyperOffice.com
Is there an evolution connector for exchange 2007?
Hi mate
I love a bit of linux but come on -
“Occasionally it complains about not being able to access the calendar or company contacts but I’m fairly sure that is the fault of the Exchange Server itself”
You make that claim with no event logs or evidence. Couldn’t possibly be Evolution has an issue. Love your dedication
Hi there. Thanks for the post.
I am trying to set this up with ES2007 and obviously it’s not working because it’s not supported, yet.
So now I am using IMAP and SMTP, which works nicely except I can’t get the LDAP contacts to show me anything from the AD server.
Any ideas on how to make this work?
Thanks!
Shannon VanWagner
http://healthysystem.blogspot.com
Shannon VanWagner
IMAP is good solution.
I don’t think MS will ever support that.
dear all,
my server use MS. Exchange Server 2007 and deactivate IMAP and POP access just the MS. Exchange protocol, when i configure my evolution with your tutorial, i have the error message like this :
The Exchange server is not compatible with Exchange Connector.
The server is running Exchange 5.5. Exchange Connector
supports Microsoft Exchange 2000 and 2003 only.
any solution for resolving that problems ??