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I am looking into setting up a sendmail server and I am kind of a newbie. I was just wondering, can sendmail be setup to act like exchange active sync?

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  • short answer: no
    – Orphans
    Nov 24, 2016 at 14:31
  • No, sendmail only sends emails. You might want to look into products like OpenExchange or Kolab. Nov 24, 2016 at 14:31

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Sendmail can only act as "email Server". However you can use another Products which offer such ActiveSync features like:

Only to name some

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  • +1 for zimbra, works quite well for me. Nov 24, 2016 at 23:25
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The answer is no, but an explanation is warranted and perhaps that will help you in the next step. Sendmail is an MTA: a message transfer agent. (Exchange is another.). That is, it takes SMTP messages (aka email) and transfers them from one MTA system to another. At some point an MTA says "yes, I'll take responsibility for delivering this message to this user" and puts it in that user's mailbox. The mailbox is managed by a mail server: Exchange for example, or something that speaks IMAP. At which point a mail user agent (your phone's email client, outlook, whatever) can log in and pick it up. What your mail client speaks depends on the mail server. Outlook can speak IMAP but when it talks to Exchange it speaks Microsoft's own protocol. Webmail is basically a web front end where the web server does the mail client piece for you.

For ActiveSync to work you need your client (phone) to stay in sync with your mailbox/contacts/calendar as held on your Exchange server. Now you see the problem: sendmail can get a message into your inbox by delivering it to Exchange, but knows nothing about the rest. You really need Exchange. At which point, since Exchange is also an MTA, you dont need sendmail at all.

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  • I am interested in a microsoft free environment. So I am not thinking about exchange at all. I am think about having sendmail as the official solution for my users and having their clients 'phones' 'web clients' etc. sync mail like how it is with Microsoft Exchange. No open source challenge to that?
    – Dre_Dre
    Nov 24, 2016 at 16:39
  • Did you checked my answer? SoGo might be what you are looking for if you do not wish to change your whole existing environment (if that is what you wish).
    – BastianW
    Nov 25, 2016 at 18:01

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