Kolab

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kolab is an open source groupware program suite. It consists of the Kolab server and a wide variety of Kolab clients, including Horde Webmail (currently is alpha/beta development), KDE Software Kontact (fully working in KDE 3.4.1), Mozilla Thunderbird with the SyncKolab extension (alpha/beta), and Microsoft Outlook with the Toltec Connector (stable release) or the Konsec Konnektor (stable release).

The Concept on which Kolab relies have been fixated by the Kroupware Contract.

1 Basic Ideas
2 Main Features
3 Kolab Clients
4 External links

[edit] Basic Ideas

The special Idea behind Kolab is the usage of IMAP as an underlying protocol not only for email, but for contact- and calendar entries, too. An entry is simply saved in a special IMAP-folder using XML and the IMAP-server takes care of the storage. The configuration and maintenance of Kolab is entirely controlled by the extensive use of LDAP.

Kolab clients and the Kolab server use well established standards for their work (f.e. IMAP as already mentioned, vCard, iCal, XML and LDAP).

[edit] Main Features

Full seamless support of mixed clients environments (Outlook/KDE/Web)
Support for the K Desktop Environment with Kontact
Support for Microsoft Outlook with KONSEC Konnektor or Toltec Connector
A web administration interface
All configuration data is kept in a LDAP directory
A shared address book with provision for mailbox users as well as contacts
POP3 as well as IMAP4(rev1) access to mail
Client-side full support of S/MIME E-Mail encryption possible (officially Sphinx-interoperable).
Full support for shared calendars
Full support for shared contacts
Fully offline capable using Kontact or Outlook
Support for server side resource management (e.g. rooms, cars,...)
Full support for freebusy handling