---
title: Using Calendar client with Calendar Server
...

OS X includes a CalDAV client called "Calendar", formerly known as iCal.
As of this writing, the current OS X version is 10.8.2 Mountain Lion,
and modern Calendar Server versions support old Calendar or iCal
versions going back to Mac OS X 10.6.x Snow Leopard. iCal in 10.5.x
Leopard and prior does not support implicit scheduling, and will not
function correctly with Calendar Server 3 or later.

Account Setup
=============

New CalDAV accounts for Calendar can be created either in the Calendar
preferences, or in the "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" prefpane. The latter
method is preferred, as it consolidates various account types into a
single interface.

To add a CalDAV account using the Mail, Contacts & Calendars prefpane,
follow these steps:

1.  Open System Preferences and select the "Mail, Contacts & Calendars"
    prefpane.
2.  Scroll to the bottom of the list of account types and click "Add
    Other Account".
3.  Select "Add a CalDAV account", then click "Create...".
4.  Supply a valid username, password, and server address, then click
    "Create".

To add a CalDAV account using Calendar preferences, follow these steps:

1.  In Calendar, choose "Preferences..." from the Calendar menu.
2.  Click the plus button at the bottom of the accounts list to add a
    new account.
3.  Set the Account Type to CalDAV. Automatic might work depending on
    your configuration (see Discovery section), but CalDAV should always
    work.
4.  Supply a valid user name, password, and server address.

Alternatively, CalDAV accounts for Calendar may be provisioned using the
Profile Manager service in [OS X
Server](http://www.apple.com/osx/server/).

Account Discovery Details
=========================

When adding a CalDAV account in "Automatic" mode using Calendar
preferences, the client looks for a [DNS SRV record for the
\_caldavs\_tcp or \_caldav\_tcp
services](http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-daboo-srv-caldav-10), to
discover the CalDAV server for the provided domain name. If such a
record is not available, Automatic setup can still succeed if the CalDAV
server name is the same as the provided domain name.

Regardless of which setup mode is used, Calendar will attempt an https
connection first on port 8443, and if that fails, will then attempt to
connect using http on port 8008. To see a detailed log of exactly what
Calendar does when discovering a new account, enable all debug logging
(see below) and filter the results for "discovery".

Push Notifications
==================

Calendar supports two options for push notifications: [Apple Push
Notification
Service](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/ApplePushService/ApplePushService.html)
(APNS), or
[XMPP+pubsub](https://github.com/apple/ccs-calendarserver/blob/master/doc/Extensions/caldav-pubsubdiscovery.txt).
Calendar will look for both of these at setup time, and will prefer
APNS. Calendar Server officially supports only the XMPP+pubsub method,
hosted by an external service. This configuration was commonly used in
older versions of OS X Server, which includes an XMPP service.

Troubleshooting
===============

Additional debug logging is available by setting the
CalLogSimpleConfiguration NSUserDefaults key in the global domain. This
key supports an array of values that specify different kinds of calendar
logging to collect. Starting in macOS 10.12, logs are collected and
managed with the [Unified Logging
System](https://developer.apple.com/reference/os/1891852-logging). Prior
to macOS 10.12, logs are managed by
[ASL](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man3/asl.3.html).
In either case, these logs may be viewed with the Console utility, or
the "log" command line tool (or "syslog" in \<= 10.11).

To enable complete protocol logging, open Terminal and run the command:

    defaults write -g CalLogSimpleConfiguration -array com.apple.calendar.store.log.caldav.http

The debug logging domains are specified using a reverse-dns style
hierarchy, so to enable all Calendar logging (includes logging of
account discovery), use the value 'com.apple.calendar'.

To activate the logging configuration change, quit and relaunch
Calendar. For versions of OS X older than 10.12, instead of quitting and
relaunching, run this command:

    notifyutil -p com.apple.calendar.foundation.notification.logConfigUpdated

To disable Calendar debug logging, run the command:

    defaults delete -g CalLogSimpleConfiguration

... then either restart Calendar (macOS 10.12 or newer), or run the
notifyutil command again.

To view calendar debug logs collected in macOS 10.12 or newer, run the
command:

    log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "com.apple.calendar.store.log.caldav.http"'

For OS X 10.11 or older, use the command:

    syslog -k Sender CalendarAgent -o -k Sender Calendar