Open Directory and LDAP - apple-phonecontacts?

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Level 1

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Open Directory and LDAP - apple-phonecontacts?

I am setting up our VOIP phones with LDAP, and everything works perfectly - i only have some unanswered questions about the way OSX applications stores information in LDAP/Open Directory differently.

E.g. the "Directory.app" on leopard stores phone numbers as e.g. "apple-phonecontacts: PhoneContact:XXXXX" and "apple-phonecontacts: PhoneWork:XXXX", while workgroup manager in OSX Server stores a phone number as "telephoneNumber".

The same issue arrives when looking a person created in "Directory.app" up in "Address Book.app", the phone numbers doesnt show up, because they are stored differently than "Address Book.app" are used to.

In "Mail.app" i have the same issue - i cant look up e-mail adresses stored by "Directory.app", because they are stored as "apple-phonecontacts" rather than "mail"?

Is there an easy fix to this? We considered moving all adresses to "Directory.app" and use that instead of "Address Book.app", so we can access LDAP data from mail, phones etc., but since we cant create new records, it isnt a suitable solution.

Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Jan 29, 2008 5:27 AM

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Answer 1

Silkjaer Author

Level 1

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Jan 29, 2008 6:02 AM in response to Silkjaer

If i change mapping in "Directory Utility" to RFC 2307, every data looks right in "Directory.app", but i cant add or edit people?

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Answer 2

Feb 28, 2008 12:23 PM in response to Silkjaer

I think that this is the root of the problem I was hoping to report, as well. I noticed that when I add someone's phone number or e-mail address using Directory.app, it doesn't change the record in Workgroup Manager. If I then add the same information in Workgroup Manager and return to Directory.app, I see duplicate entries -- one of which (the one added in WM) is greyed out as uneditable, and one of which can be edited.

I'd really like to allow people to edit their own contact information, add entries, etc., but if it doesn't work with Address Book or Mail, what's the point?

Greg

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Answer 3

Mar 13, 2008 9:43 AM in response to Greg Westin

To follow up on this, I just went and entered all of our users' information using Workgroup Manager, but then I wanted to add some 'shared contacts', which as far as I know can only be done via Directory. Or rather, I'm sure one could do it with some other LDAP client, but I don't know how to set that up to use all of the correct settings; as the OP indicated, even Apple seems to have difficulty with this.

At any rate, when I create shared contacts in Directory.app, they show up in Address Book, but with no phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc.

Is there any third-party alternative to Directory that I can use to create/edit shared contacts? I don't really care at this point if all of my users can add/edit things in the directory; as long as I can do so, that's fine for now.

Greg

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Answer 4

Mar 17, 2008 5:45 AM in response to Silkjaer

I've logged this as a bug with Apple, and outlined all the attributes that seem to be set incorrectly in order to make Directory.app Shared Contacts work with LDAP Address Books.

The details are here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1442433&tstart=0

You might like to log a bug with Apple too, so we can actually get some action on this problem. It's made it very difficult for us to really use Leopard server, as this was a key feature we were hoping to make use of.

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Answer 5

bob32

Level 2

157 points

Mar 19, 2008 6:03 PM in response to Greg Westin

Some additional info...

When you add a user (with their contact info) using Workgroup Manager, the user (say their shortname is "bob") ends up in the LDAP directory (where the base is dc=example,dc=com) as:

uid=bob,cn=users,dc=example,dc=com

When you add a contact by dragging an entry from Address Book into Directory, their entry ends up being:

cn=boblastname,cn=people,dc=example,dc=com

... and their phone number goes into the telephoneNumber attribute, street address into the street address, etc. for email, as you'd expect, and can be viewed as usual in Address Book.

However, when you create a New Shared Contact in Directory, their entry becomes:

cn=bob,cn=person,dc=example,dc=com

... and their phone number goes into the apple-phonecontacts attribute, and their email goes into apple-emailcontacts. Attributes you'll never see in Address Book.

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Answer 6

Mar 19, 2008 6:34 PM in response to bob32

So until this get fixed, if I'm the only one adding/editing shared contacts, I can just create them in a local Address Book and drag them into Directory? If that works, that's a great hack for the short term. Thanks for figuring that out, Bob.

Greg

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