Autconfiguration for kolabclient

[Christian Mollekopf]

On Friday 20 June 2014 14.21:44 Christian Mollekopf wrote:
> On Wednesday 04 June 2014 11.56:57 Sandro Knauß wrote:
> > Hey,
> > 
> > for beeing able to auto configure the client, we should create a file at
> > the server to get most settings for the client. As base I used the
> > Thunderbird autoconfig file [1].
> > 
> > I added additional xml tags for ldapserver, freebusy and identities.
> > 
> > Some questions:
> > * should the file
> > <http://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/mail/config-v1.1.xml> be
> > extended? pro: thunderbird can using the email part as well
> > * the identity part isn't defined in hunderbird autoconf [1], do you know
> > any configuration for that tag?
> > 
> > Different modes:
> > * requesting the file with auth basic  -> fill out password etc.
> > * without login data -> return the file with %PASSWORD%, %USER%,...
> > 
> > Using other urlpaths:
> > http://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/kolab-v1.0.xml
> > or split everypart into an own file:
> > http://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/ldap/config-v1.0.xml
> > http://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/freebusy/config-v1.0.xml
> > http://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/kolab/config-v1.0.xml
> > would be only a xmlfile that refers to the other parts.
> 
> To get to a conclusion here, I'll line out what I think about it:
> 
> == What is autoconfig ==
> Autoconfig is a mechanism for automatic discovery of servers/services and
> for preseeding deployment specific configuration data.
> 
> == What should it include ==
> * discovery of imap/smtp server including default configuration
> * discovery of ldap server including default configuration
> * discovery of freebusy provider including default configuration
> 
> All these services are in a deployment specific location and normally need
> to be configured manually. Including those allows the client to
> automatically setup the services. Non of these settings belong to kolab
> configuration files that IMO should be used for your personal preferences,
> and not the deployment specific default values.
> 
> The identity is IMO only a nice-to have for new setups because it allows an
> organization to i.e. preseed a default signature, but it's not a requirement
> or core-feature of autoconfig. If the kolab account is already setup-up the
> identity should be read from the kolab configuration anyways.
> 
> == Open questions ==
> * Do we need the default identity?
> * Do we need to include credentials in the config?
> 
> If we need to provide credentials we need authenticated requests that allow
> providing a personalized autoconfig file, otherwise we can use a static one
> (In either case we can fallback from the personalized to the static one if
> not available). I suppose we need to provide credentials if they cannot be
> guessed from the provided email address and password that we have
> available.
> 
> == Proposal ==
> I suggest we drop the default identity if we can (that just makes the whole
> setup process more complex).
> 
> Otherwise I agree with sandro's proposal other than renaming the <freebusy>
> tag to <freebusyProvider> and <ldapServer> to <ldapProvider>. I don't agree
> they should be part of the <emailProvider> tag (or at least I don't see
> why).
> 
> If we need to provide credentials we'll go with the authenticated request,
> otherwise with the static one.

As I follow up I also propose to use separate files for ldap and freebusy, so 
we'll have:
* http://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/mail/config-v1.1.xml
* http://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/ldap/config-v1.0.xml
* http://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/freebusy/config-v1.0.xml

That way i.e. thunderbird will work with the regular mail/config as usual,
while Kontact can additionally pick-up ldap and freebusy.

I don't see a need for a kolab/config.

> 
> Cheers,
> Christian