Re: [PLUG] LDAP addressbooks (Long)

[Morgan Jones <morgan@morganjones.org>]

Hello Lee,

Have you looked at a CardDav solution?  There seem to be add-ons for Thunderbird that allow it to speak CardDav.  My experience with CardDav is from my iPhone to Zimbra 6.0.x and it worked well (with a major gotcha so don't use it with live data just yet!).  It also works well from Apple's Address Book app on the Mac.

Those are not your platforms of course but it could be that CardDav is or may become the missing link: if the Thunderbird CardDav plugin can write to a CardDav server and that server can be back-ended with OpenLDAP you'd be in business.  Or I guess as long as Thunderbird reading from CardDave suits you it's not important that it be back-ended by OpenLDAP.

A google search shows open source CardDav servers available..

Let us know if you figure out something.

-morgan



On Jan 8, 2011, at 10:08 AM, Lee Marzke wrote:

> I'm looking for ideas on addressbooks that work across multiple devices.  I've been
> using Google Voice since I picked up an Android phone, but not really happy with
> how that is working.  I only use Google Addressbook now, not Google email, or voice.
> 
> My environment is:
> 
> - Ubuntu Lucid 64bit Laptop,   with Thunberbird as email client.
> - Remote hosted IMAP server with IMP Webmail
> - Android phone
> 
> - Test instance of OpenLDAP,  with InetOrgPerson schema default
> - Test instance of 389 Directory Server
> 
> 
> I really like the idea of using LDAP,  and have setup OpenLDAP in the past,  but now that
> I am looking at LDAP again I find multiple areas that are frustrating.
> 
> - Thunderbird can't write to LDAP, only read.   I'm partially open to other IMAP clients.
> 
> - Evolution can write, but doesn't use the same LDAP fields/schema as other products.
>   In many cases simple things like zip codes are scrambled.  Seems that multiple LDAP
>   fields are being concatenated into one field because of the schema issues ?
> 
> - InetOrgPerson schema is provided in OpenLDAP is close to what I need, if only a
>   group of tools would use it.  Evolution wants EvolutionPerson ?
> 
> - OpenLDAP won't load 'schema' files anymore,  they need to be in .ldif format ?
> 
> - OpenLDAP's config file is not used anymore,  it is configured by another LDAP instance.
>  This seems to be a complete mess,  as most documentation refers to slapd.conf
> 
> - I've also setup 389 Directory server,  but this seem to add a bunch of complexity
>    with no real benefit.
> 
> I'm quite happy with my current IMAP hosting setup and not really looking for an
> integrated product like Zimbra.
> 
> Any suggestions or ideas ?    Can OpenLDAP still be run with the old 'slapd.conf' file instead
> of the current setup ?   Is there a common schema that works - and can also be synced
> in some format to Android ?
> 
> -- 
> Lee
> 
> 
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