When messages are sent by a mail client, imip-agent employs an outgoing message rule in the MTA to provide a handler to inspect any calendar-related content and to update its records.
The management interface does not use this outgoing message rule because it sends messages from the general calendar address (for example, calendar@example.com), and there is no trivial way of deducing the identity of the real sender. Instead, the manager explicitly sends suitably-modified messages to the address of the user operating the interface to achieve the same effect as the outgoing message rule, as well as to notify any mail clients that would normally be managing calendar events on behalf of the user.
Method | Effect on Objects | Effect on Free/Busy | Effect on Request Queue |
CANCEL | Remove selected attendees or an entire event | Remove record if entire event is cancelled | Remove any queue entry |
PUBLISH | Add or update object, removing specific recurrences of recurring events | Add record for the event, removing records for specific recurrences of an event | |
REQUEST | |||
REPLY | Merge attendee participation information | Update records for the event, preserving specific recurrence records when changing a recurring event |
The effect of the outgoing handler is to ensure that the user's free/busy status reflects the consequences of their stated attendance of events, and for the object records to reflect the most recent state of each event.
Other object types are not handled. Free/busy information, if exchanged, is not obtained by the handler to replace its own records.