reason to do otherwise. The resulting folder will be /opt/Funambol. Once the product has been extracted, you’ll be asked whether you want to start the server. Type yesand continue on. To make sure things are working properly, point your browser to http://localhost:8080/funambol/ds, and you should get status information back from the Funambol data synchronization server (Figure 1).
Figure 1. A Quick Test to Make Sure the Server Is Up and Running
Of course, if you aren’t running this test directly on the server, you’ll want to change localhost to the hostname or IP address of the server.
Funambol also comes with a simple Web app to test the contact as well as calendar cre-ation and update before you turn it over to your mobile device. Point your browser to http://localhost:8080/funambol to bring up the demo page. You won’t be able to do a great deal at this point, other than read the terms and conditions and test a very limited Web client. That demonstration will allow you to log in as guest with a password of guest and create contacts (Figure 2)
or a calendar entry. Once you have done so, update a record or two, and make sure the changes are being saved.
Now that you know it works, you still can’t do a great deal with Funambol in this form. In order to do more interesting things, you need to do a little system configuration. On the server side, there is a graphical administration tool. You can start it from the command line like this:
cd /opt/Funambol admin/bin/funamboladmin
A couple seconds later, you’ll see the Funambol administration tool appear (Figure 3). To use the administration tool, you first need to log in. If you don’t see the login window up front, click File on the menu bar, and select Login. By default, the admin password, sa, already is set (you always can change it later), but for now, simply click Login.
Figure 3. Funambol Administration Tool and Login Screen
The Funambol administration tool is divided into three panes: a navigator pane fills the top left half, an admin tool pane is at the top right, and a status pane is located along the bottom (Figure 4). Take a look at the navigator window, and you will see your system’s domain name at the top. To expand the
COOKING WITH LINUX
Figure 2. The Web client demo lets you create calendars and contacts, making it a better test.
Figure 4. On the left, you can see the Funambol administration tool’s system navigator with several expanded properties.
system tree, click the switch icon next to the domain name. You’ll then see Server Settings (which expands into its own subtree), Users, Devices, Principals and Modules. That last one also expands into several other branches. To see how this all works and how you can configure and change things, let’s deal with that admin password right now.
Double-click on Users and look at the admin tool window (Figure 5). The Search Users tool appears. You can search by user name, first name, last name and e-mail address. Enter adminin the search box beside Username, and click the Search button (notice that you can search by a part of the name as well as position of the text by clicking the drop-down box beside the label). Only one admin name should show up, so it naturally will be high-lighted. If you did this by searching for part of a name, and you had multiple names, you would, of course, need to select the correct name.
Click the Edit button, change the password, and then save your changes. That takes care of control-ling access to the tool. Your next step is to define access to the system. As it stands, your Funambol implementation allows connections only from localhost and then only to a limited set of users. You need to change that. Double-click on Server Settings in the navigator window. Now, look to the left and locate the Server URI field in the settings window (Figure 6).
Enter the hostname (or the IP address) of your server, then click Save. You should see a confirmation message in the status window below. It should look something like this:
http://yourdomain.com:8080/funambol/ds
Believe it or not, that’s pretty much it on the server end. Now, let’s take a break, have François refill everyone’s glass, and then let’s see what we
need to do on the BlackBerry end of things.
The first step is to install the BlackBerry client, which you can find at https://www.forge.funambol.org/
download/downloads-bb.html. You will see an e-mail client in addition to the sync client, but, for the sake of this article, let’s just concentrate on the sync client. Make sure you get the right client for your particular BlackBerry OS version.
Once installed, you will see the Funambol BlackBerry sync icon in your list of applications on the BlackBerry screen (Figure 7).
Note:
In this article, I concentrate on BlackBerry synchronization with a Linux system, but remember that Funambol offers sync clients for many different mobile devices and smartphones. Simply point your browser to www.forge.funambol.org/download to find the right client for your mobile device. You even can sync your Android phone.COOKING WITH LINUX
Figure 5. Using the Tool to Change the Admin Password
Figure 6. As a final first step, you need to configure the URI to the Funambol service on your server.
Figure 7. The Funambol Client Icon as It Appears on My BlackBerry
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