OS X address book and LDAP

[ManagerJay]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have been asked to interface OS X's Address Book with my company's existing LDAP server running on FreeBSD. Basically, they want to be able to pull e-mail addresses and names from the LDAP server.

Where can I find a list of what attributes OS X's address book is looking for so I can make sure the LDAP server responds appropriately?

Thanks,


Jay

 

[twiSSt]

Are these of any help?

http://www.macgeekery.com/hacks/software/shared_address_book_via_ldap

or this

http://www.stanford.edu/services/email/config/osx3mail/ldap/

Twist

===========================================
Everything will be OK in the end.
If it's not OK, then it's not the end

 

[ManagerJay]

Yes, they do. Thank you very much.


Jay

 

[imeldesign]

Using LDAP lookup and Exchange with Mail and Address Book

If you are on campus then you can skip this step. You already have mail and address book installed (unless you deleted them for some unknown reason).

Configuring Address Book to look up emails from AD server.

Click on Address Book in the dock. Open Preferences (Address book >preferences) Click on the LDAP tab and then the plus sign in the lower left corner to add a new server. Enter the following information in the fields:

1. Name: Enter whatever you want here.
2. Server: "chbcds02.cottagehill.org" without quotes using your domain controller.domainname.xxx
3. Search Base: leave this blank.
4. Port : 3268
5. DO NOT USE SSL (unless you do, of course)
6. Scope: Select "Subtree"
7. For authentication select "Simple"
8. User Name: "domainname\username_in_caps" fill in your username in caps where directed.
9. Password: fill in your login password.

Click "save". When that window closes make sure you also click "Auto Update LDAP Cards" in the preferences window.

Test to make sure this all worked. Go to your Address Book main window. If you closed the window go to "window" at the top of the screen and select "Address Book". On the left side of the screen you should see several options, select "Directories". Next you should see Directories. Now in the upper right corner you should see a search box. Type in a portion of someone's name, or just a letter and you will see "name" and "email" of people at domain appear in the window. Try this with people who are not in your address book locally just to be sure.

 

[ManagerJay]

I think I asked the wrong question.

Where can I find a list of the attributes OS X's address book is looking for when querying an LDAP server? I need to return a name and e-mail address.

From what I have read, I should be looking for displayName and mail. Does this sound reasonable?


Thanks,


Jay

 

[jmgalvin]

Launch either Mail or Address Book on a Mac and go to the Help menu. In the next window, search for LDAP. You might have to read several of the entries until you can the correct answer, but it should be there.

Using OSX 10.3.9 & 10.4.11 on a G4, G5 & Intel Macbook

 

[jmgalvin]

Here's the language from the general Mac help when LDAP is seacrched:

Mail, Address Book, and some similar applications can look up email addresses and other contact information in specialized databases called "directories" on your network or the Internet. You can configure these applications to search specific directories that use the open standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). For instructions, open Mail and choose Help > Mail Help or open Address Book and choose Help > Address Book Help, then search for help on LDAP.

Applications may also use Mac OS X directory services, which is known as Open Directory, to look up contact information in directories on your network or the Internet. You set up Open Directory to access specific directories by using Directory Access. For more information, open Directory Access and choose Help > Directory Access Help.


Using OSX 10.3.9 & 10.4.11 on a G4, G5 & Intel Macbook

 

[ManagerJay]

First, thanks to everyone for their help.

In case anyone else runs into this same problem, this is what I have found so far.

1. Addressbook uses gn (given name) and sn (surname) to assemble a complete name. I could not get it to use CN.

2. Addressbook looks for mail to be used as the e-mail address.

3. I have not added any additional attributes such as address, etc. to see if they will display.

I am working on a script to create an LDIF file from the Exchange Server's Global Address List (GAL). If anyone is interested, please let me know, and I will post when it is done.


Jay