How to set up Autodiscover

WHAT IS AUTODISCOVER

Autodiscover ensures that any client application, such as IceWarp Desktop Client or IceWarp applications on mobile phones, will receive a list of available ports, protocols, URLs, and server addresses. So, users must only know their e-mail address and password to set up their email accounts.

Virtually any protocol settings can be configured using the Autodiscover feature, provided that the corresponding client has Autodiscover support. IceWarp offers Autodiscover settings for applications such as IceWarp Desktop Client, SIP and IM clients, and Notifier utility.

HOW TO SET IT UP

1. To enable the functionality of Autodiscover, all of the following DNS records must exist on your domain provider's DNS manager.

• DNS A record: autodiscover.example.com, which points to your IP address of the server

• CNAME record: autodiscover.example.com points as a CNAME to one of your A records pointed to your server's IP address.

• SRV record

Note: Please do not use the example.com in the actual DNS records as it is meant only for example purposes.

The most reliable method of Autodiscover uses a Service record (SRV).

Service records for Autodiscover consist of the following parameters and values:

2. A non-expired, CA-issued SSL certificate must be installed on the server for Autodiscover to work on mobile phones. Otherwise, the Autodiscover will fail due to an untrusted connection with the server (and, therefore, untrusted authentication).

HOW IT WORKS
Once the client application is supplied with an e-mail and password, it will automatically try to contact the server via HTTP GET requests using the domain part of the e-mail address. If the URL doesn't exist or fails with an error, the client will automatically retry the other URL until the server's AutoDiscover service can be contacted.

Applications supporting Autodiscover:

• IceWarp Dashboard (https://login.icewarp.com/)

• IceWarp Desktop Client

• IceWarp FileSync

• IceWarp Outlook Sync

• IceWarp TeamChat Desktop

• Most mobile devices implementing Exchange Activesync

Type of requests:

1. Autodiscover domain attempt

A client who has an e-mail address and password of the user will issue a simple HTTP GET request to: https://autodiscover.example.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml 
Authentication requests should be returned from the server. An XML response is returned from the server when authenticated properly via HTTP Authentication.

2. Original domain attempt
If the URL does not exist or fails with an error, the client should retry the additional URL using the same mechanism: https://example.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

3. MX query host attempt (this step is specific to clients developed by IceWarp)

If still unsuccessful, a client MAY issue a DNS MX query for the domain to list the records corresponding to the server's hostname. It checks all MX records in the order of preference and
attempts to contact the same URL as in step 2.

https://mxhost1/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml 
https://mxhost2/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml