GroupWise 6.5 may be a good e-mail platform, but what makes it even better is the client software used to send messages, make appointments, and track tasks. GroupWise users can employ one of two standard clients: the GroupWise client or the Web version, which is the GroupWise Web Access client. Here’s what you need to know to get both of them up and running.

The native client
To get the most functionality from the complete GroupWise feature set, the native GroupWise client is the best choice. While the Web client can provide a great deal of utility, only the native client is complete.

Best of all, after getting a GroupWise system up and running, the native client is the easiest installation to work with, whether your GroupWise system runs on Windows or NetWare. The client software resides in your GroupWise software distribution directory. For my Windows 2000-based GroupWise system, this directory is C:\Grpwise\Software\Client\Win32. If you’re running GroupWise on a NetWare server, you’ll probably find it on your SYS volume. To install the client, simply run the setup.exe program.

The GroupWise client requires Windows Messaging be installed. If it isn’t, the installer will let you know and will ask if you would like to install it. After Windows Messaging is installed, you must reboot the system.

There are two ways to run the GroupWise client: locally or from the network. Running it locally will result in better performance, but will require a regular installation at each user’s workstation while a network installation just needs to be done once with each user pointed to the right place for the executable. For the purposes of this Daily Feature, I will be performing a local installation on a Windows XP Professional workstation. By default, the program will be placed in C:\Novell\GroupWise.

The installer also asks whether you would like certain options installed by default, as shown in Figure A. The first option, besides GroupWise itself, is the Internet Browser Mail Integration module, which allows GroupWise to handle mailto links on Web sites. The second is a Tip Of The Day module, which does exactly what it indicates.

Figure A
Here are the GroupWise client installation options.

After choosing options, the installer asks for a program folder name that defaults to “Novell GroupWise.” On the next screen, shown in Figure B, you specify whether you want GroupWise Notify installed and run each time the system starts. GroupWise Notify notifies you of new GroupWise messages by placing an icon in the notification area of the system tray.

Figure B
Here is the GroupWise Notify installation option.

Finally, you must select the language choices. For my installation, I have chosen only U.S. English. Once this selection is made, the installation is performed.

Running the client
Once the installation is complete, you can start the client by double-clicking the GroupWise desktop icon. Upon the initial execution, the client will need to know certain information, such as the IP address of the GroupWise server running the post office agent, the user name, and the password for the user (as shown in Figure C).

Figure C
Here is where you enter the GroupWise client parameters.

Once these are supplied, the client starts up as expected in the mailbox for the user, as shown in Figure D.

Figure D
Here, you can see the GroupWise client in the mailbox of the user.

GroupWise Web Access
The other supplied and supported method for accessing GroupWise post office information is the GroupWise Web Access client. As you would expect, this is a browser-based client served from a Web server attached to the GroupWise system. For this portion of this article, I will be using a NetWare-based GroupWise system. I will only use Windows to actually run the installation.

The installer for this component is located in the software distribution directory at Software/Internet/Webacces (not a typo!) and is run with the Setup.exe program located there.

In order for Web Access to work properly, two components are required: the Web application and an agent that handles the access to the GroupWise message store, as shown in Figure E.

Figure E
At this point, you need to choose these two components.

For my test installation, I will install the Web Access component on the same NetWare system running GroupWise 6.5. Installation takes place from a Windows 2000 system, and I have to specify the path to the installation directory on the GroupWise NetWare server, as shown in Figure F.

Figure F
Specify an OS and installation path on this screen.

The next step (see Figure G) is to specify the IP address that the Web Access Agent will listen on. In my test lab, it is 192.168.1.206. It will listen on port 7205. This is not the port that will be used by client browsers but is, instead, the port that the agent and GroupWise will use to communicate.

Figure G
Input the agent addressing information on this screen.

Next, information about your GroupWise system is required. Specifically, the agent needs to know where to find the domain file wpdomain.db and what subdirectory you would like to use for the Web Access files. You’ll provide this information on the GateWay Directory screen, as shown in Figure H.

Figure H
At this point, the agent is gathering gateway directory information.

Like the post office agent (POA), the message transfer agent (MTA), and the GroupWise Internet agent (GWIA), Web Access is configured using ConsoleOne. This is possible because Web Access is an NDS object. As such, it needs to know what name you want to assign to it. For my example, I have named my NDS object WEBAC65A, as shown in Figure I.

Figure I
Here is where you will assign the NDS object name for Web Access.

The Web agent requires direct access to the domain files and either direct or TCP/IP access to each post office. As such, it needs a user ID that has rights to both of these areas. You’ll provide this information on the eDirectory Authentication screen, as shown in Figure J. For my example, the admin user will do nicely. You may want to consider creating restricted access accounts for this purpose for added security.

Figure J
eDirectory authentication is required.

Web Access has a Web Console that you can use to monitor status information. By default, this console runs on port 7211. Again, this is not the port that clients will use; instead, it provides operational information for administrators. In order to function, this service needs a username and password associated with it. You’ll configure this information on the Web Console screen shown in Figure K. This username and password is completely separate from both NDS and GroupWise and is only used for this service.

Figure K
Add the Web Console configuration information on this screen.

Since Web Access is a Web application, it makes sense that it needs a Web server in order to function. A list of supported Web servers is listed in Figure L. For this example, I have chosen Apache and provided the path to my Apache installation.

Figure L
Choose the Web server you want to use here.

If you are using your Apache Web server for other tasks, you may not want Web Access to clobber your default pages with its own. As such, you have the option (as shown in Figure M) to either replace current pages or to keep the default page. If you choose to keep the default page, the Web Access page is named novell.html.

Figure M
You have the option to keep the Web server’s default page.

Logging is an important step to take, especially when you need to track down a problem later. The next step of the installer, the Novell Root Directory screen shown in Figure N, asks for a directory in which to place logs. I have chosen the default Sys:System\Novell for this purpose.

Figure N
Here, you can choose the Novell root directory you want to use for logging.

Like most Novell things these days, the Web Access component requires a Java servlet engine. You can specify which servlet to use on the Java Servlet Engine screen, as shown in Figure O. For this purpose, I have chosen to use the included Tomcat servlet gateway.

Figure O
Here you can see the path to the Java engine.

After this, the Web Access installation completes and the services are started. In my lab, browsing to http://192.168.1.206/novell.html resulted in a screen asking for my language preference I chose U.S. English. After that, I logged into GroupWise and was presented with the screen shown in Figure P.

Figure P
Here is my GroupWise Web Access client.

Connect to GroupWise any way you want
You can easily provide support for both your internal and external users using either the native GroupWise client or the Web Access client. The native client is fuller-featured, but the Web client is supported on a wide variety of platforms and works with almost any browser. No matter which choice you make, you can’t make a bad choice.