Accessing Outlook from RedHat

[Kevin Brown]

Kurt Granroth wrote:
> FWIW, I was investigating accessing email and calendaring from Exchange in 
> Linux just a few weeks ago.  Your choices depend almost completely on how 
> flexible the Exchange admin is.
> 
> If Exchange is configured with just the default proprietary setup, then your 
> only real option is to get CodeWeaver's Office and run Outlook.  The cost 
> would then be however much CW Office is ($60ish) plus Outlook unless you 
> already have a license for that.  You would probably also have to get your 
> admin to give you the Outlook CD to install it in CW.
> 
> If your Exchange admin is a *little* flexible, then you might have the 
> Outlook Web Access (OWA) enabled.  This uses WebDAV.  Ximian Evolution has 
> a proprietary extension called "Connector" which uses OWA to access *most* 
> of Exchange's functionality.  Connector costs about $60, as well.  One 
> caveat: Connector only works with Exchange 2000.  5.5 will *not* work.
> 
> If your Exchange admin is very flexible, then he can open up any number of 
> IMAP, POP3, LDAP, etc ports on Exchange and then you can use pretty much 
> any popular Linux tool to access your stuff.
> 
> Good luck finding that last option in the real world.  Most shops that use 
> Exchange are quite large and multi-location.  Even *finding* the right 
> Exchange admin can be a chore.  Convincing them to open up any ports is 
> usually next to impossible.

:)

I must be lucky then.  My boss is the Admin for Exchange and we are just getting 
to testing and configuring it.  My job is to maintain the network, phones and 
workstations (including the servers, but not necessarily the programs on the 
servers).  This is going to be a heterogenous network, composed of Windows, OSX, 
Linux, and Unix (Solaris most likely).  With Exchange being the main email 
server (not my choice) it needs to work with all these possible clients.