Zarafa was an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

groupware application that originated in the city of

Delft Delft () is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, and The Hague, to the northwest. Together with them, it is part of both the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolita ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The company that developed Zarafa, previously known as Connectux, is also called Zarafa. The Zarafa groupware provided

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

storage on the server side and offered its own

Ajax Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

-based

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...

client called ''WebAccess'' and a HTML5-based, ''WebApp''. Advanced features were available in commercially supported versions ("Small Business", "Professional" and "Enterprise" (different feature levels)). Zarafa has been superseded by Kopano. Zarafa was originally designed to integrate with

Microsoft Office Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as cale ...

and was intended as an alternative to the

Microsoft Exchange Server Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems. The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the related ...

. Connectivity with Microsoft Outlook was provided via a proprietary client-side plugin. Support for the plugin has been discontinued after Q1/2016, though Outlook from then on can use its own ActiveSync implementation instead. The WebApp (and WebAccess) has the same "look-and-feel" as the Outlook OWA. The software handles a personal address-book, calendar, notes and tasks, "Public Folders", a shared calendar (inviting internal and external users, resource management), exchange of files, and video chat. The open source edition does not support any MAPI-based Outlook users, while the community edition supports three Outlook users. All server-side components and the WebApp/WebAccess of Zarafa are published under the

Affero General Public License The Affero General Public License (Affero GPL and informally Affero License) is a free software license. The first version of the Affero General Public License (AGPLv1), was published by Affero, Inc. in March 2002, and based on the GNU General P ...

(AGPL), based on the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

, version 2 (GPLv2). Introducing and maintaining a dual-licensing strategy, on 18 September 2008 Zarafa released the full core software, that is the server side software stack, under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 (AGPLv3).

Technology

Zarafa provides its groupware functionality by connecting the

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

-based server with Outlook clients using

MAPI Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) is an API for Microsoft Windows which allows programs to become email-aware. While MAPI is designed to be independent of the protocol, it is usually used to communicate with Microsoft Exchange Se ...

. The communication between server and client is based upon

SOAP Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are us ...

technology. The connection to Outlook clients can be secured using

TLS/SSL Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in secur ...

, either directly between the Zarafa server program and the client, or via an

HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...

proxy Proxy may refer to: * Proxy or agent (law), a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act * Proxy (climate), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest in climate re ...

. All data is generally stored in a

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...

database, although attachments can be saved on the filesystem. The Zarafa server can get its user information from

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...

Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralize ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...

user accounts or the MySQL database. The webmail is based on HTML5 (WebApp) and

AJAX Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

technology (WebAccess), with a PHP backend using a MAPI PHP extension. Other clients can connect via

POP3 In computing, the Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. POP version 3 (POP3) is the version in common use, and along with IMAP the most common ...

IMAP In computing, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection. IMAP is defined by . IMAP was designed with the goal of per ...

and

iCalendar The Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) is a media type which allows users to store and exchange calendaring and scheduling information such as events, to-dos, journal entries, and free/busy information, a ...

CalDAV Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV, or CalDAV, is an Internet standard allowing a client to access and manage calendar data along with the ability to schedule meetings with users on the same or on remote servers. It lets multiple users in diff ...

. Zarafa initiated a project called Z-push in October 2007.Z-Push - open source push technology
Z-push.sourceforge.net. Retrieved on 2013-07-17. It supports Exchange ActiveSync compatible devices (

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...

Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 200 ...

, iPhone (firmware 2.0 and higher), Android (version 2.1 and higher),

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

(mail4Exchange)) implementing the ActiveSync protocol and using the Incremental Change System (ICS) provided by the PHP-MAPI extension.

References

Publications

* Peter van Wijngaarden: ''Linux Magazine NL, Sep/2006, nr 4 -- Zarafa extended with real-time LDAP coupling'' * Sebastian Kummer und Manfred Kutas: ''Linux Magazine PRO (USA) Feb/2008 -- Zarafa - Exchange Alternative'', Linux New Media AG, München, 2007 * Roberto Galoppini and Davide Galletti: ''Open Source Messaging & Collaboration: Zarafa'', SOS Open Source 2011

External links

Official website
{{Email servers Free email software Free groupware Wireless email Data synchronization Collaborative software Groupware Ajax (programming) Groupware Software using the GNU AGPL license

Technology

See also

References

Publications

External links