In my quest to migrate at least one of my machines to Linux full-time, there were a couple of "must-haves" that I simply, well, must have. The main one being a real email client for managing my work email.
The client I work for,
Alpha Theory, uses an Exchange 2007 server, so my Linux Email Client options are limited at best. The Evolution-Exchange connector won't work with Exchange 2007, so I'm left with POP3 and IMAP. I decided to go the IMAP route so all my mail will remain on the server, still accessible via Outlook Web Access and my desktop machine's Outllok client.
Since I don't want to open IMAP to the Internet via the firewall, I'll connect to it via our corporate VPN connection.
First, make sure the IMAP service is running and configured to start Automatically. The second thing we need to do is enable Exchange 2007 IMAP plain-text authentication. To do this, open the Exchange Management Shell and type the following commands:
- Set-IMAPSettings -LoginType PlainTextLogin
- restart-service -service msExchangeIMAP4
Now, simply open Evolution (or your favorite Linux email client with IMAP support) and configure it as you normally would for any other IMAP server.
Keep in mind, you'll likely need to use the INTERNAL FQDN or IP address of your Exchange 2007 server, rather than the external FQDN or IP address if you are connection over a VPN. I used the private internal IP address of our Exchange 2007 server during the configuration of Evolution with no problem whatsosever.