Evolution Connector 2.6.1 under Fedora Core 5 and OpenSUSE 10.1

Right before the Memorial Day holidays here in the states I jammed in a quick test of using Evolution Connector 2.6.1 under both Fedora Core 5 and OpenSUSE 10.1. I wanted to have something to write up during the holidays: a geeks work is never done. As the summary notes, Connector still doesn't work when run against our MS Exchange 2003 servers. A few background notes about what I am after when I test this and how I tested.

Testing in a virtual world

I loaded both Fedora Core 5 and OpenSUSE 10.1 distro as guests under Parallels RC1 on the Macbook. RC2 is out now as I write this, and works even better! Based on all my experience using virtual machine technology in general, and Parallels in particular I can see no reason to believe that if I tested this native on other hardware that my results would be any different. Virtualization could introduce possible timing issues if I was after a benchmark of some kind, but as a basic function test it just should not matter. And the Macbook, with VT and a 2.1 Ghz processor is faster, even in the guest environment, than any other hardware I have access to. The next best thing I have is the 1.7 Ghz IBM T41 and FC5 under Parallels is every bit as fast or faster from a purely subjective point of view than FC4 running native on the T41. Even if you assume a 10% overhead for Parallels (and it it is probably closer to 5% if you believe the VT docs), the guest is getting an effective 1.8 Ghz on the Macbook .

It is not even close to being that simple of course: VT runs some things at native speeds: instructions that need no virtualization. Other things get intercepted that Parallels has to virtualize. I have not been to class or been able to find a great deal of technical info on the Internet on Parallels or VT or how Parallels uses VT. I assume that intercepted things are in the general area of I/O, either to network, disk, screen, or memory, and the general integer and floating point instructions are running raw, "on the iron" via VT.

I should note that I did run this test on real iron (an HP NX5000) using OpenSUSE 10.0 a while back, with about the same results, so I do not think I am too far off the beam here.

I type all this in the spirit of full disclosure, in case someone thinks this is not a valid test of function and that I should repeat it using real hardware. I have been loathe to do that because it is just so convenient to to it as VM's, and my SHARE test environment is already set up on the hardware I would use, and it would be hours of work to change it, and then change it back if I had to in order to get the class going again.

Test Servers

Next up in the full disclosure parade: I am testing this against our BMC production MS Exchange 2003 servers. I have absolutely no idea what service packs are on, what version of anything that matters in Active Directory is: I have in fact made a point of staying ignorant on this subject because to some large degree what I am trying to test is a real-world thing: can anyone anywhere at any time (the three anys) replace their MS Windows desktop with Linux / Evolution and expect to be able to get to and manipulate things like their "Out of Office" greeting (a.k.a the “Spammer Good Email Address Verification Tool"), calendars, task lists, etc, the same relatively easy way they can with "native" MS Exchange clients. As I noted in my column on calendaring, MS Exchange and its non-standard protocols causing problems interacting with it is one of the few reasons why I personally have MS Windows around at all these days.

Evolution and Evolution Connector

The versions of Evolution I was testing were the ones that came with the Distros: I did not try to download and build my own anything. This is also a test in part of how well the Distros do at packaging this.

Recall that I am testing Connector here more than I am Evolution itself. Evolution is a generalized email client that can work against a variety of email servers, such as those that provide open standard based services like IMAP and POP, and directory services from LDAP. Being a Novell product, it also works against Novell's Groupwise. Before Novell bought Ximian, Ximian was giving away Evolution and selling Evolution Connector, and add-in that allowed Evolution to plug into the same WebDAV services that the Outlook Web client uses. Evolution with Connector could therefore do everything the web client could, but from a more standard 'fat client' style.

While Evolution is the standard email client of the Gnome project, it works fine under KDE (3.5 in this case) as well. Just to be sure, I tried running the Gnome desktop that each distro ships to see if that changed my results, and it did not. The only advantage I could see to running Gnome over KDE was that it was slightly easier to control the display fonts Evolution uses under Gnome than KDE. Even then, I can run either "gnome-control-center" or "gnome-font-properties" under KDE to reset the fonts. But I have to do it every time I restart KDE. A bit of a pain.

Evolution 2.6.1 under FC5

I had run this test as while back when FC5 was brand new, but YUM (Yellowdog Update Manager: the standard service tool these days of Fedora... go figure) brought down some new Evolution packages at about the same time as OpenSUSE shipped, so that in part was what made me think of doing this as a head to head test. After doing the usual “yum -y update” and seeing the new packages, I configured Evolution the same way I always do, and the way that is working under FC4 with the 2.2.3 version there. I have done this so many times I could pretty much do it in my sleep now: All you need to know is the AD name of the MS Exchange server, the name of the DC server for the GAL (Global Address List), and the format of the WebDAV string used to access your userid. This is usually in the form

http://servername.addomain.companyname.HLID/exchange/userid.

And since I am sure that made no sense, here for instance is mine more or less:

http://exchangesvr.activedir-production.bmc.com/exchange/scarl

There is a button you can click to verify that you have it typed in correctly. For some reason 2.6 can not just figure out that WebDAV path for itself based on you just giving it the server name and your userid: probably because the MS Exchange support folks in your location can change that default path however they like, and the Evolution developers could not just assume the last bit to be “.../exchange/userid”. I don't know where in the Evolution version history that changed: 1.x version assumed it, and I thought I recalled early 2.x versions did as well. Key fact here: My WebDAV path verifies as being correct. It is easy to get into Outlook webmail and look at the path to see what it needs to be.

But Evolution crashes... well, the Connector crashes. The message says that the Evolution storage bit has crashed: Evolution stays up, and you can configure it, but it has no connection of any type to the server. The storage bit is Connector. In my mind's eye I have this mapped out that Connector is Evolutions “Exchange Server Access Method”. ESAM. Old mainframe braincells die hard.

I have tried many times, many ways. I have had it forget my passwords, remember them, deleted all the .evolution and .gnome* bits in my directory, rebooted to clean up in memory processes like Bonobo that keep running... on and on. Nothing works. Connector just crashes. I tried IMAP/LDAP to MS Exchange and that works fine. It is clearly Connector.

Evolution 2.6.1 and OpenSUSE 10.1

The news is slighty better on OpenSUSE. Since OpenSUSE has a relationship with Novell (about the same one as I have with my parents in fact), I had high hopes that it would work without any issues, but the truth be told, I think that it is possible that focus may have gone to Groupwise internally. Makes sense I suppose, but I have no control over what our email server is. I have to use MS Exchange. I am not alone: I believe that in the USA MS has about 50% of the market share.

The client set up is exactly the same under the otherwise lovely 10.1 version of OpenSUSE. You tell it where your inbox is, and verify your WebDAV path and your GAL server

The servers may or may not be the same: We are big enough at BMC that Inbox and GAL are on different servers. In my lab that I take to SHARE it all runs on the same server.

To cut to the chase, email works here.

And weirder; calendaring and tasks and all the other MS Exchange stored goodies work. At first I was jumping up and down and doing yippees to the consternation of those nearby. I was ready to jump in and write a new weblog right then and there. But I decided to log out and back in once to see what would happen. What happened is only email was accessible from then on. I click the checkbox next to the MS Exchange version of the calendar (different from the local version), and something that looks like a login attempt zooms by on the bottom line, and it unchecks the calendar.

Thinking I had a loose nut at the keyboard, I deleted everything: .evolution, .gnome* and rebooted. I very carefully re-created my userid. And everything worked again. I logged out. Back in: only email worked from then on. I did it all a third time. Either that nut is very loose or there is a Connector problem here too. A somewhat different one, but still. I need my calendar. I have five different ways to get to email from Linux. All of them work too. Thunderbird works and is far faster. Better at LDAP too.

More when I know it

Shortly after I get back from the holiday I'll start work on the lab for SHARE. I have been using Knoppix 3.2 there for a while, in part because everything “Just Worked” (tm). I tried Knoppix 4.02 for the prep for the last lab, and it's shipped version of Evolution and Connector did not work with my lab MS Exchange 2003 server. The failures were of the 'Storage Crashed' variety that I am currently seeing with 2.6.1 under FC5. KDE's Kontact client worked fine against the lab server, so I am pretty sure it's a Connector issue. I see there is the possibility the Knoppix 5.x will be available soon enough for me to try it in the lab. Hopefully that will work. If not I may poke around some of the other LiveCD based projects to see if there is anything I can slip into place that has a more current version of Connector than Knoppix 3.2 has, and that works. Clearly what version works right or not is something of a matter of hit or miss, and I do not know why. Yet.