Often times you will have 3rd party JARs that you need to put in your local repository for use in your builds. The JARs must be placed in the local repository in the correct place in order for it to be correctly picked up by Maven. To make this easier, and less error prone, we have provide a goal in the install plug-in which should make this relatively painless.

To install a JAR in the local repository use the following command:

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=<path-to-file> -DgroupId=<group-id> \ -DartifactId=<artifact-id> -Dversion=<version> -Dpackaging=<packaging>

For example, to install jbilling_api.jar (API for connecting to JBilling application), use the following command:

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=/opt/jbilling_api.jar -DgroupId=jbilling \ -DartifactId=jbilling -Dversion=2.0 -Dpackaging=jar

Then, on the project’s POM file, add the following external dependency, so that Maven will include this jar while compiling:

<dependencies>

…

   <dependency>
           <groupId>jbilling</groupId>
           <artifactId>jbilling</artifactId>
           <version>2.0</version>
    </dependency>

…

</dependencies>

This book explains almost all about syncing your email and other data with mobile devices using Funambol 7.1

• Provide push email capabilities and synchronization services for mobile devices and PC software using Funambol
• Develop your own Funambol extensions
• Many examples explaining all functionalities provided by the Funambol platform
• An easy reading for system administrators and developers who want to keep in sync enterprise data

Click here for this book’s home page.

In Detail

Funambol is a free and open source mobile synchronization server that provides push email, address book and calendar (PIM) data synchronization, and device management for wireless devices. Are you looking to sync your email and other data with mobile devices for easy access? This book will show you how to do that via the Internet cloud.

With the help of this complete, practical guide you will learn how to access your email, calendar, contacts, important notes a lot more easily and quickly using Funambol. You will be able to sync a large number of online applications with your mobile devices. You will also be able to develop, deploy, and manage any mobile project.

This book will show you how to provide a full-featured PIM synchronization and push email service with Funambol.
You will start by installing Funambol on a personal computer, and then move on to acquire detailed information on the Funambol architecture and the network requirements for deploying it. You will cover several components of Funambol such as Data Synchronization Server, Device Management, Client Plugins, and more.

As you reach the end of the book, you will delve deeper to explore the wide range of possibilities of the Funambol platform beyond the immediate needs of personal data synchronization and mobile email. The book is also a great starting point for anyone who aims to extend Funambol. This book was targeted at version 7.1 of Funambol, but is also applicable to version 8.

Read the full Table of Contents for Funambol Mobile Open Source

Read the sample Content for Funambol Mobile Open Source

What you will learn from this book

• Install the server on both Linux and Windows environment, and learn how to start/stop Funambol services
• Sync your data with other devices and get notified of new emails or other personal data changes
• Start synchronization automatically to receive changes made with another application or device using push synchronization
• Connect to the Data Synchronization Service using Funambol administration tool
• Synchronize all different devices with a central PIM database and email system using the different push mechanisms
• Access a database on a separate machine instead of the local database by configuring Funambol
• Restrict access to specific users, add new users, and track registered users using the Funambol Administration Tool
• Set up and start the PIM Connector and PIM Listener Service, and learn how it works in a complex scenario using a Windows Mobile phone
• Develop a custom connector to access an external data source by following a simple tutorial-styled example

Approach

The book is composed of two parts. The first part will take you through the steps required to fully understand and deploy Funambol to provide PIM synchronization and push email solution to your mobile users. This is done step-by-step, starting from a simple personal usage scenario to a more complex environment that must serve thousands of users. All components of the platform are smoothly introduced and explained, starting from the functionality they provide. The second part of the book is more informative and will assist you in building Funambol extensions. In particular, it contains an easy-to-follow tutorial that will allow you to write a Funambol connector in a few easy steps.

Who this book is written for

If you are looking forward to install and get started with Funambol, this book is for you. You need to have a technical background and be confident with a bit of code tweaking, but not a developer.
General server administration skills are assumed and familiarity with Java will be a benefit in places.

Author(s)

Stefano Fornari

Stefano Fornari is a co-founder and CTO of Funambol, Inc., the leading provider of open source mobile cloud sync and push email solutions for billions of phones. Stefano had several years of software development experience before starting the Funambol open source project in 2003. He was one of the main contributors of the project and was also the project manager. Today, Stefano is in charge of the engineering team of Funambol. Prior to his development work on Funambol, Fornari was the chief architect at Stigma Online where he played a key role in the development of the company’s flagship portal product, SolWeb Intra. He has also held positions at Compaq, where he was an advisor on wireless technologies in PDAs, and at Art Technology Group (ATG) as a consultant. He holds an M.S. Degree in Computer Science.

These are the required steps in summary to sign MIDlets with a certificate.

1. Generate public/private key pairs.
2. Generate Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and submit it to CA .
3. Sign the MIDLet with the certificate.

Here are the list of software required to accomplish the steps:

1. Sun Java 2 SDK or JRE
2. Sun Wireless Tool Kit (WTK)

Generate public/private key pairs

Create a Keystore

From the command line navigate to Java 2 SDK bin directory (if it is not in the PATH yet) and type the below command :

keytool -genkey -keyalg rsa -keystore <keystore_filename> -alias <alias_name>

It prompts you to enter a password for your keystore, your name, organization, and address. For example:

C:\tmp>keytool -genkey -keyalg rsa -keystore vitraining.keystore -alias vitraining
Enter keystore password:  1234567890
What is your first and last name?
  [Unknown]:  akhmad daniel
What is the name of your organizational unit?
  [Unknown]:  vitraining
What is the name of your organization?
  [Unknown]:  vitraining
What is the name of your City or Locality?
  [Unknown]:  bandung
What is the name of your State or Province?
  [Unknown]:  jawa barat
What is the two-letter country code for this unit?
  [Unknown]:  ID
Is CN=akhmad daniel, OU=vitraining, O=vitraining, L=bandung, ST=jawa barat, C=ID
correct?
  [no]:  yes

Enter key password for <vitraining>
        (RETURN if same as keystore password):

You will find the keystore file on the directory called vitraining.keystore.

List the generated keypairs

To see your generated keypairs entry, type the below command :

keytool -keystore <keystore_filename> –list

For example:

C:\tmp>keytool -keystore vitraining.keystore -list
Enter keystore password:  1234567890

Keystore type: jks
Keystore provider: SUN

Your keystore contains 1 entry

vitraining, Dec 14, 2009, keyEntry,
Certificate fingerprint (MD5): CA:EE:0C:D6:64:4D:C3:A3:B9:92:9B:14:58:E0:A1:76

Generate Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and submit it to CA

Next, you need to generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) for the enrollment process.

Generate CSR

Type the below command to create a CSR for the key pair in the keystore:

keytool –certreq –file <certreq_filename.csr> –keystore <keystore_filename> -alias <alias_name>

For example:

C:\tmp>keytool -certreq -file vitraining.csr -keystore vitraining.keystore -alias vitraining
Enter keystore password:  1234567890

You will find a new CSR file in the directory called vitraining.csr. Submit the generated CSR to CA.

Sign the MIDLet with the certificate

Once the CA has approved your request, you will receive the certificate, usually by email containing the certificate. You need to copy paste or save the attachment of the certificate file to a file. The next steps are:

Import the certificate to your keystore

Use the below command

keytool –import –trustcacerts –keystore <keystore_filename> -alias <alias_name> -file <cert_filename>

For example:

C:\tmp>keytool -import -trustcacerts -keystore vitraining.keystore -alias vitraining -file vitraining.cert
Enter keystore password:  1234567890
Certificate reply was installed in keystore

Now the keystore is filled up with the valid certificate.

Sign the JAD file

Use JadTool utility to sign a JAR file by adding both of the certificate and the JAR file’s digital signature to the Java Application Descriptor (JAD) file, the process will be :

a. Adding the certificate to JAD

To add the certificate as the value of an attribute named MIDlet-Certificate-m-n, we will use JadTool.jar. Here m is the number of the certificate chain, and n is an integer that, for new certificates, begins at one and increments by one each time you add a new certificate to the JAD file.

java -jar %WTK_HOME%\bin\JadTool.jar -addcert -keystore <keystorename> -alias <aliasname> -storepass <password> -inputjad <input_jadfile> -outputjad <output_jadfile>

For example:

java -jar %WTK_HOME%\bin\JadTool.jar -addcert -keystore vitraining.keystore -alias vitraining -storepass 1234567890 -inputjad test.jad -outputjad test_t.jad

When succeeded, you should see the below attributes added to your output JAD file (in the example test_t.jad):

MIDlet-Certificate-1-1

MIDlet-Certificate-1-2

MIDlet-Certificate-1-3

b. Adding JAR’s digital signature to the JAD

This last process will get the JAR’s digital signature, stores it as the value of the MIDlet-Jar-RSA-SHA1 attribute of the output JAD file.

java -jar %WTK_HOME%\bin\jadtool.jar -addjarsig -jarfile <jar_file> -keystore <keystorename> -alias <aliasname> -storepass <password> -keypass <password> -inputjad <input_jadfile> -outputjad <output_jadfile>

The default value for -jarfile is the MIDlet-Jar-URL property in the JAD file. For example:

java -jar %WTK_HOME%\bin\jadtool.jar -addjarsig -jarfile test.jar -keystore vitraining.keystore -alias vitraining -storepass 1234567890 -keypass 1234567890 -inputjad test.jad –outputjad test_t.jad

Conclusion

Here is to conclude:

1. keystore file is the file you created for storing public and private key pairs
2. csr file is the file you created for submission to get a valid certificate from CA
3. after getting the certificate, save it to a file, and the store it to back your keystore file
4. the keystore file is ready for use for signing JAR and JAD files

The Funambol core project is a free and open source mobile synchronization server that provides push email, address book and calendar (PIM) data synchronization, and device management for wireless devices, leveraging standard protocols such as SyncML (as defined by Wikipedia). Using Funambol, we can have a BlackBerry-like features on cheap handsets which have at least J2ME and GPRS capabilities (well, almost all of them have this feature now).

Image via Wikipedia

We can use Funambol to synchronize our email, address book, and calendar data from many kind of mobile devices (Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm, iPod, iPhone, and any J2ME capable devices) and popular services on the web like Gmail, Facebook, MSN, and Yahoo, and even desktop applications like Ms Outlook, Thunderbird, and Lotus Notes.

It means that we can read, compose, and reply/forward emails from our mobile device with the same account as our GMail or Yahoo Mail. Using it’s push email technology, we can be notified by our cheap mobile phone when someone send us an email on our Gmail account. We can add a task or schedule a meeting on calendar using Outlook then we can see them on a cheap K320i Sony Ericsson mobile phone as well as on Gmail Task. Our contact address books will also be synchronized between all devices, services, and application that we use, meaning that our phone address book will be the same as our Yahoo, Outlook, or Gmail Contacts database. This is a very good solution for backing up valuable contact database especially for those who always lost his mobile phone easily (like me ;)).

Companies with large number of mobile employees and very tight schedule will take advantage by installing it’s own internal Funambol server, as the employees will be reminded always with it’s task and schedule as well as keep in contact with the headquarters using push email technologies. This can be achieved using the employees’ handsets that they already have.

Components

Funambol consists of several components:

• Funambol Data Synchronization Server: a mobile application server providing synchronization services for wireless clients and PCs, including push email.
• Funambol Device Management: an OMA DM server to remotely manage mobile devices.
• Funambol Connectors: gateways to file systems, databases, email systems, and applications for two-way synchronization with existing data assets.
• Funambol Client Plug-ins: protocol extenders and clients for Microsoft Office Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird (experimental), Mozilla Sunbird (experimental), Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm and iPod and iPhone so users can synchronize their email messages and PIM data (address book, calendar, tasks and notes) with the server.
• Funambol Software Development Kit: tools to develop sometimes-connected mobile applications on devices (in Java – J2SE and J2ME – and C++) and to add data sources to the server.

How Does It Works?

Funambol Data Synchronization servers listen on a specific port that act as a synchronization server between mobile devices, desktop applications, and web services. All these clients and Funambol use the same language, SyncML, to to the synchronization process. Funambol has its own database to store client user data, devices profile, services that the user have, email account, etc. Once setup, Funambol will keep checking on the users email account and when an email arrives on that account, Funambol will push that email to users’ handset which already installed with Funambol Client application. Using SyncML, users can add a task on their handset, then do the synchronization, and Funambol will process this task synchronization to other services that they have, for example to Gmail, Yahoo, or MSN. When they log in to Gmail, they will see the same task that they entered on their handset before.

System requirements

Windows-based host

• Pentium 4 CPU, running at 1.8GHz
• Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional or Windows Vista
• 200 MB of free disk space
• 768 MB memory

Linux-based host

• Pentium 4 CPU, running at 1.8GHz
• No Linux version or publisher restrictions, at present
• 200 MB of free disk space
• 512 MB memory

Public IP address is a must, since mobile devices will need it to do the synchronization process.

Business Opportunity

• For System integrator and implementation service company: installing and implementing Funambol server for companies, telecommunication services, community. This can be charged by man-hour or contract based project.
• Software developer: developing new module for integrating Funambol to an existing system, using Funambol SDKs. This can be charged by man-hour or contract based project.
• Consultancy and Training on how to install, implement, integrating, development and extending Funambol: This can be charged by man-hour or contract based project.
• Service Provider: for companies which run it’s own synchronization services for it’s own customers, Funambol provides Funambol Carrier Edition, which can be bought commercially and be customized to to suit the company’s logo, brand name, etc.

Where to go further

• www.funambol.com – official Funambol corporation website
• www.forge.funambol.org – official Funambol Open Source website
• my.Funambol.com – free 90 days trial on how Funambol service looks like
• www.vitraining.com – provides installation, implementation, integrating, development and extending Funambol services worldwide