Use Wiki Calendar in iCal Server 10.7 with Mozilla Sunbird

By BXTra |

I have set up iCal Server on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server. Everything works great with all iDevices (iPhone, iPad). However, I would like to share my wiki calendar to PCs also and there is no easy way to do that. Apple doesn't provided any documents for users. I have to search many forums and website to make it work.  Below is what I found.

Start with setting Sunbird to connect to your iCal calendar. The information from this website ( http://trac.calendarserver.org/wiki/CalendarClients ) does work :

  1. Launch Sunbird.
  2. Select New Calendar from the File menu.
  3. In the Create a new calendar assistant, select On the Network and click Continue.
  4. Select CalDAV as the format, and under Location, enter your server address. Click Continue when finished. (For example:  http://localhost:8008/calendars/users/jsmith/calendar )
  5. Enter a name for your calendar and click Continue.
  6. Click Done.
  7. When prompted, enter your CalDAV username and password.

Calendar server address format for use with Sunbird

http://server.example.com:8008/calendars/users/<<uid>>/calendar

or

https://server.example.com:8443/calendars/users/<<uid>>/calendar

where 'server.example.com' should be set to your calendar server hostname, '<<uid>>' should be the login id of the user. The '/calendar' at the end is the name of the calendar on the server and should be adjusted for the actual calendar stored on the server. To see what that might be use a web browser to examine the files on the calendar server.

Now, you need to get Wiki Calendar. First of all, you need to log in into your OS X Lion Website. Subscribe to Wiki Calendar so that it will appear on your user account calendar.

  1. Go to https://server.example.com:8443 and log in into your account.
  2. Click at Wikis, then open your Wiki Calendar.
    Wiki Calendar
  3. Now, move your pointer to the Wiki calendar that you would like it to appear on your own calendar. Here, I moved it to 'Else' Wiki Calendar. You will see " i " button shows up. Click at " i ".
    iCal Server Lion - Wiki Calendar
  4. You will see the box pop up. Click at "Add to My iCal Calendars"  Now, the Wiki calendar you choose will also show up in your account Calendar.
    iCal Server 10.7 Lion - Wiki Calendar


Next, you need to know the URL to use in Sunbird. You already know your local Calendar account URL but that one will not work for Wiki Calendar that you just subscribed.  Here is what I do, Go to http://server.example.com:8008/calendars/users/<<uid>>/ .  You will see something similar to image below :

iCal Server 10.7 Lion - Wiki Calendar

You will see that I got 3 long links there. Each of these 3 links are from my Wiki Calendar. My Wiki 'Else' Calendar is "4e878804-14e5-4f32-abf5-d567a8226ef2"  So, the link that I have to use in Sunbird under Location URL is

https://server.example.com:8443/calendars/users/<<uid>>/4e878804-14e5-4f32-abf5-d567a8226ef2/

That's it. Your Wiki Calendar will show up in Mozilla Sunbird. However, you may need to add each Wiki Calendar into Sunbird if you have more than one.  Actually, I would like to be able to get the whole calendar in Wiki so that I don't have to set up each link for each calendar. However, I really don't know where to look for. At least, the step I did above is working fine for now.

Also, in case you prefer to use SSL. You will face the problem of untrusted Certificate if your SSL is self generated. Below is what I found it's useful.

If "With SSL" URL type chosen,

  1. A "Secure Connection Failed" window pop up you to indicate "the certificate is not trusted because it is self-signed"
  2. click "Cancel" (as many the window pop)
  3. Next window, click "Finish"
  4. Go to "Tools" Menu / "Options"
  5. Window "Options", select "Advanced icon"
    • Select "Encryption" Tab then click "View Certificates"
  6. Window "Certificate Manager" pop up to you
    • Click "Servers" tab
  7. Click "Add Exception" button right bottom side
  8. Window "Add Security Exception" pop up
    1. Enter Location : https://<server-name>:8443
    2. Click "Get Certificate"
    3. Window is filled with information : "Unknow Identity ..."
    4. Select "Permanently store this exception" checkbox
    5. Click "Confirm Security Exception"
    6. Window closes and let appear previous with the server address filled in
    7. Click "Ok"
    8. Window closes and let appear previous
    9. Click "Ok"

Source :

  • http://trac.calendarserver.org/wiki/CalendarClients
  • http://www.asisolutions.eu/index.php?post/2010/04/18/Snow-Leopard-/-iCal-Server-/-ThunderbirdLightning-or-Sunbird
  • https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1414653

Software Used :

  • iCal Server on Mac OS X 10.7.3
  • Sunbird Portable 1.0b1 on Windows
  • The test were always done with SSL set up.
  • Also tested with Mozilla Thunderbird 10 + Lightning 1.2 on Windows and Lubuntu 11.10

The manual you are looking for is: https://help.apple.com/advancedserveradmin/mac/10.7/ There's two lines you need: If automatic discovery fails, the account URL is http://server:port/principals/users/username/ If the calendar client doesn’t support automatic discovery (like Mac OS X v10.5 iCal 3.0), the account URL is http://server:port/calendars/__uids__/GUID where GUID is the user’s globally unique identifier. It's probably got more information that you'd find interesting.

I have used http://server:port/principals/users/username/ in my iPhone / iPad / Mac and it works great. But when I tested about delegation on OS X Server, it doesn't seem to work as it should. I can't remember what was wrong at that time. So, I went with Wiki method to share the calendar. Thanks for the link to the document. I really couldn't find it until you post here :( Will have to check it out if there is anything that I missed :)

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