URLs and Interfaces ------------------- By default, OWA runs at http://SERVERNAME/exchange/USERNAME, but the "/exchange" part can be changed by the administrator. There are roughly three interfaces all running on the same set of URLs: HTML-only, HTML/XML/ActiveX, and WebDAV. In general, WebDAV-only methods like PROPPATCH and SEARCH always access the WebDAV interface. Standard HTTP methods like GET and POST access the WebDAV interface if you pass "Translate: f" in the request headers, the IE interface if you claim to be IE in the User-Agent header, and the HTML OWA interface otherwise: HTML-only: GET /exchange/danw/Inbox/foo.EML HTTP/1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla blah blah blah 200 OK HTTP/1.0 Content-Type: text/html HTML/XML/ActiveX: GET /exchange/danw/Inbox/foo.EML HTTP/1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla blah (compatible; MSIE blah) 200 OK HTTP/1.0 Content-Type: text/xml WebDAV: GET /exchange/danw/Inbox/foo.EML HTTP/1.0 Translate: f 200 OK HTTP/1.0 Content-Type: message/rfc822 HTTP methods ------------ GET - Used with "Translate: f" to fetch message bodies and iCalendar data. Used with "User-Agent: MSIE..." to access certain bits of XML OWA functionality (particularly free/busy data and GAL lookup). PUT - Used (with "Translate: f") to create new messages and calendar objects, and to send mail using the mail submission URI. POST - Used to update out-of-office data by posting new values to the Options page. Not used for anything else: if you POST a message to a folder, it is marked as being a draft (meaning that if you double-click on it in Outlook, it opens in a composer window), and there doesn't seem to be any way to undo that. WebDAV methods -------------- PROPFIND - Used in a few places to fetch properties from one or more objects. SEARCH and BPROPFIND are used more often though, because they allow easy selection of multiple objects. SEARCH - This is a proposed extension to WebDAV (see draft-davis-dasl-protocol-00.txt in the ietf/ subdir), although IIS's implementation does not match the proposal completely. (In particular, it only allows SQL searching, while the spec requires a "simple" search method as well.) Full info about the SQL syntax can be found on MSDN, but you only need to know the details if you are editing the sql-construction code in e2k-connection.c or e2k-restriction.c PROPPATCH - Used to change properties. Also used to create new objects in some places (eg, contacts and tasks). MKCOL, DELETE, COPY, MOVE - Used for shell folder ops only BPROPFIND, BPROPPATCH, BDELETE, BCOPY, BMOVE - Bulk operations. Another MS extension. These allow you to act on multiple objects at once. BDELETE is used for "empty trash". BCOPY and BMOVE are used for message moves/copies. We also use the MS "Allow-Rename" header to tell it to rename the messages if needed. (Messages delivered to your Inbox get the message Subject plus ".EML" as their name, by default. Duplicate names get "-2", "-3", etc appended. So if you receive a message with the subject "Re: foo", it would be called "Re:%20foo.EML". If you delete it, it is moved to the Deleted Items folder. Then if you get another message with the subject "Re: foo", it would also be called "Re:%20foo.EML". If you delete that, since we use the Allow-Rename header, it would be renamed to "Re:%20foo-2.EML" automatically.) The bulk operations return the same result codes as their non-bulk equivalents if you use them on a single object. If you use them on multiple objects, they return status 207 (multistatus) with an XML response giving the results for each object. SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE/POLL - Another MS extension, explained in the "subscriptions" doc.
