imip-agent

README.txt

955:18aa266fe15d
2015-10-28 Paul Boddie Moved documentation to the wiki page representations, tidying along the way.
     1 imip-agent
     2 ==========
     3 
     4 This software implements an agent that can interpret e-mail messages
     5 containing calendar information, maintain availability records for scheduling
     6 participants, act on behalf of resources and other entities that need to
     7 participate in scheduling, and support user interfaces for end-users whose
     8 e-mail programs do not understand calendar data.
     9 
    10 Getting Started
    11 ===============
    12 
    13 Eventually, this information should be incorporated into packages for various
    14 operating system distributions, and the accompanying instructions should be
    15 largely superfluous for most users.
    16 
    17 See: docs/wiki/GettingStarted
    18 
    19 Configuring Mail Systems for Mail Recipients
    20 ============================================
    21 
    22 The software should operate independently of the way mail recipients are
    23 identified in any given mail system, and thus does not dictate things such as
    24 routing or account querying. However, example configuration files are provided
    25 that demonstrate the use of various techniques to identify mail recipients.
    26 
    27 Naturally, these recipient identification configuration examples can be
    28 disregarded in favour of other ways of defining mail recipients, subject to
    29 the needs of any given environment.
    30 
    31 See: docs/wiki/MailIntegration
    32 See: docs/wiki/MailIntegration--LDAP
    33 See: docs/wiki/MailIntegration--Simple
    34 
    35 Configuring Mail Systems for Mail Delivery
    36 ==========================================
    37 
    38 The agent software assumes that delivery of mail to recipients may be
    39 performed either using local SMTP or by using LMTP to a suitable mailbox
    40 provider.
    41 
    42 See: docs/wiki/MailIntegration
    43 See: docs/wiki/MailIntegration--LMTP
    44 See: docs/wiki/MailIntegration--LocalSMTP
    45 
    46 Configuring Web Servers for Free/Busy Publishing
    47 ================================================
    48 
    49 Each user may request the publishing of their free/busy information by
    50 configuring certain settings. The conf/apache/imip-agent.conf file provides a
    51 configuration file for deployment with the Apache Web server software that
    52 exposes a directory for Web publishing containing the published free/busy
    53 information.
    54 
    55 Access to free/busy information may not be moderated, but Web server
    56 directives can be introduced to impose access controls. Mail programs that
    57 wish to consult the free/busy information may have problems in dealing with
    58 authentication mechanisms, however, and it may be regarded as acceptable in
    59 certain environments to expose such information publicly or with
    60 network-specific access constraints.
    61 
    62 Configuring Web Servers for the Calendar Management Interface
    63 =============================================================
    64 
    65 A calendar management interface is provided to allow users to view and
    66 interact with their calendars through the Web. The
    67 conf/apache/imip-manager.conf file provides a configuration file for
    68 deployment with the Apache Web server software that enables this interface.
    69 
    70 The management interface is deployed as a CGI program, meaning that a suitable
    71 module must be enabled in the Apache configuration. On Debian, this is done as
    72 follows:
    73 
    74 a2enmod cgi
    75 
    76 Since such access to calendars should only be performed by identified
    77 users, access controls are suggested in the configuration file. Modules
    78 providing additional authentication support may need to be enabled. For
    79 example, on Debian, the LDAP authentication/authorisation support is enabled
    80 as follows:
    81 
    82 a2enmod authnz_ldap