• CalendarServer

Keywords: CalendarServer, ical, vcal, Darwin, Share calendars, Thunderbird, lightning, outlook, Icedove, iceowl,

Install CalendarServer

aptitude install calendarserver

Configure Calendar Server

• Since calendarserver uses extended attributes you must mount the filesystem that contains the calendars (/var/spool/caldavd by default) with extended attributes enabled.
• XFS has extended attributes enabled by default.
• On ext3 add the user_xattr to the list. In my case I had /var/spool/caldavd on my "/" partition so I changed it like this:

vi /etc/fstab
#change from:
/dev/sda2       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
#to:
/dev/sda2       /               ext3    defaults,user_xattr,errors=remount-ro 0       1

• Reboot

Add accounts.xml

• Now we need to add accounts.xml, and sudoers.plist
• Look at the accounts.xml and add any username and passwords in the similar fashion. We will copy the file from our examples folder and use username: admin, password: admin just to get us started. We will change the password when we are done.

cp /usr/share/doc/calendarserver/examples/accounts.xml /etc/caldavd/
cp /usr/share/doc/calendarserver/examples/sudoers.plist /etc/caldavd/

• Just an FYI. If you only require one more username you can quickly change the "test" user to you. So in my case I wanted a username lucas, so I opened the accounts.xml and replaced test with lucas.

:%s/test/lucas/gc

• Done, I have a lucas username in the system, with password lucas. I will change that password now.

Start CalendarServer

• Uncomment the following line in:

vi /etc/default/calendarserver 

# uncomment to start calendarserver on system startup
start_calendarserver=yes

• Start the service:

/etc/init.d/calendarserver start

• By default calendarserver listens on localhost only so the URI to your caldav calendar will typically look like http://localhost:8008/calendars/users/<user>/calendar/

• Visit this url to see if it works: http://localhost:8008/calendars/users/admin/calendar/

Add Calendar To Thunderbird

• On Thunderbird/Icedove Install the lightning calendar module or use sunbird. I already have mine installed. On debian I install iceowl aka lightning :

aptitude insatll iceowl-extension

• Add a new calendar:

• Pick a name for the calendar:

• Done. Now Add events:

• When others update, you just click Reload

Enable Calendar on company network

• Edit this file: vi /etc/caldavd/caldavd.plist

• Leave this empty to enable all or put in the proper ip address. In my case I've change the <array><string>localhost</string></array> to

 <!-- List of IP addresses to bind to [empty = all] -->
  <key>BindAddresses</key>
  <array><string></string></array>

/etc/init.d/calendarserver restart

Share events and Tasks

• Now follow the same step as we did in Adding calendar on other computers and you have fully functioning shared calendars system.

Moving Root Document Folder

• If for example you want to move a document root folder somewhere else you can do that by changing the following.
• In my case I have xfs running on /home partition so I want to move my calendar there.

Edit:

vi /etc/caldavd/caldavd.plist

And change

#from:
  <!-- Document root -->
  <key>DocumentRoot</key>
  <string>/var/spool/caldavd</string>
#to:
  <!-- Document root -->
  <key>DocumentRoot</key>
  <string>/home/caldavd</string>

• Now set the proper permissions

mkdir /home/caldavd
chown caldavd:caldavd /home/caldavd

• Restart calendarserver

/etc/init.d/calendarserver restart