Zimbra Tech Skillz: ABQ for Mobile Devices

Welcome to the first post of our new blog series: Zimbra Tech Skillz!

Hello and welcome to our new series “Zimbra Tech Skillz”! As the name says, this blog series will focus on technical aspects of Zimbra. We hope you enjoy!

In Zimbra 8.8.9 (Curie), there is a new feature called Allow/Block/Quarantine (ABQ). ABQ is a “pre-emptive” security feature that ensures that only authorized mobile devices can synchronize with the Zimbra server. ABQ is an access control feature and will be included in the Mobile NG module of Zimbra Network Edition and in the Mobile+ module of Zimbra Suite Plus.

For all of the technical details, click here.

Here is a summary …

Feature Description

The Allow/Block/Quarantine (ABQ) feature allows for granular access control of mobile devices connecting to the Zimbra server. It’s a “pre-emptive” type of security feature, meaning that it acts upon the first connection to the server, and it’s made to ensure that only authorized devices can finalize the synchronization with the server.

The ABQ feature is composed of three main logical components:

  • a Device Control List
  • an Authorization Engine
  • a set of CLI tools

Device Control List

A Device Control list holds the information about allowed devices within the NG config engine. Devices can be added to the device control list via CLI based on their Device ID.

Authorization Engine

The Authorization Engine takes care of checking new devices against the device control list and setting their ABQ status to the appropriate value.

CLI Toolset

The CLI Toolset allows administrators to interact with the device control list and with the synchronization status of a device, specifically:

  • Display the device control list
  • Display all Quarantined and Blocked devices
  • Add one or more devices to the device control list
  • Move a device from “Quarantine” to “Allowed” or “Blocked”
  • Change the synchronization status of a device

Stay tuned for next week’s Zimbra Tech Skillz post! Thanks for reading,

Your Zimbra Friends & Colleagues

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One Response to Zimbra Tech Skillz: ABQ for Mobile Devices

  1. Dheeraj September 30, 2018 at 12:32 PM #

    Nice security improvement in Zimbra. Will these feature included pop3 account also ?

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