Hello list,
Before all thank you developpers for this great software !
My question is regarding the LDAP support in address book: I've seen
some functions about changing entries in the server and also the possibility to bind with login / password. Does this mean that one day (hopefully soon) there will be full support for an address book in an LDAP server ?
I'm asking this because I'm wondering if I have to write an interface
to update contacts in my LDAP directory or if I can wait for RC to implement it.
I may patch RC to implement it myself but that would take time because
I don't know well the architecture of the project (for now) and I have no experience in PHP/Ajax... (I'm a Perl coder).
Regards,
On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 16:36 +0200, Alexandre Jousset wrote:
Hello list,
Before all thank you developpers for this great software !
My question is regarding the LDAP support in address book: I've seen some functions about changing entries in the server and also the possibility to bind with login / password. Does this mean that one day (hopefully soon) there will be full support for an address book in an LDAP server ?
I'm asking this because I'm wondering if I have to write an interface to update contacts in my LDAP directory or if I can wait for RC to implement it.
I may patch RC to implement it myself but that would take time because I don't know well the architecture of the project (for now) and I have no experience in PHP/Ajax... (I'm a Perl coder).
I think perhaps you may have a misunderstanding concerning the intent of the LDAP support, at least as LDAP is typically used.
LDAP based contact information is usually provided as a service to the members of a large community by a central administrator (e.g. your company and its IT staff). For instance in the directory are all the employees of your company with whom you may need to communicate (i.e. LDAP replaces the company phone book).
LDAP is not meant as your personal address book.
Note, in RoundCube there are *both* a personal address book (backed by the database RoundCube was configured with) *and* LDAP look-ups.
When you want to add a person entry unique to your own address book it goes into your address book in RoundCube, not your companies LDAP server. Your personal collection of contact information is not something which requires sharing with everyone else in your company and in general the administrators of your LDAP directory server probably are not keen to have random users manipulating a company wide resource. However, having said that, there are LDAP entries which are designated as user modifiable in many environments, but this is not central to this discussion.
If the reason you want your personal address book information in a central repository such as LDAP is to all lookup's from multiple computers then realize this is already supported by both RoundCube's backing database and the fact it is a web based application, either means of access gives you remote multi-platform access.
On Monday 10 April 2006 17:21, John Dennis wrote:
My question is regarding the LDAP support in address book: I've seen some functions about changing entries in the server and also the possibility to bind with login / password.
I'm interested in that too - is there any way to specify a bind cn, rather than use anonymous bind?
Hello John,
John Dennis wrote:
On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 16:36 +0200, Alexandre Jousset wrote:
My question is regarding the LDAP support in address book: I've seen some functions about changing entries in the server and also the possibility to bind with login / password. Does this mean that one day (hopefully soon) there will be full support for an address book in an LDAP server ?
[...]
I think perhaps you may have a misunderstanding concerning the intent of the LDAP support, at least as LDAP is typically used.
"Typically used", that's the word ;-) See below...
[...]
If the reason you want your personal address book information in a central repository such as LDAP is to all lookup's from multiple computers then realize this is already supported by both RoundCube's backing database and the fact it is a web based application, either means of access gives you remote multi-platform access.
My goal was to use RoundCube as a webmail and also allow people, when
they are at home / work, to use another client like Thunderbird or Outlook. As they both do not allow to modify LDAP contacts, and as I've seen functions to do that in the file ../program/include/rcube_ldap.inc, I was just wondering if it was possible and / or planned with RC.
You answered me about the future of RC *not* allowing to change
contacts in LDAP, and thus the patch may not be welcome. I understand your point.
It's true that I don't plan to use LDAP as usual, but as you said just
(in part) for a central repository for contacts and use ACLs to forbid reading of other users' addresses. This is not for a company but just for my own server where I host some services (mail, web, DNS, etc.) for friends and family ;-)
Well it's not a problem, I'm going to write a web UI to do that on my
site :-)
Regards,
On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 18:34 +0200, Alexandre Jousset wrote:
I think perhaps you may have a misunderstanding concerning the intent of the LDAP support, at least as LDAP is typically used.
"Typically used", that's the word ;-) See below...
If the reason you want your personal address book information in a central repository such as LDAP is to all lookup's from multiple computers then realize this is already supported by both RoundCube's backing database and the fact it is a web based application, either means of access gives you remote multi-platform access.
My goal was to use RoundCube as a webmail and also allow people, when they are at home / work, to use another client like Thunderbird or Outlook. As they both do not allow to modify LDAP contacts, and as I've seen functions to do that in the file ../program/include/rcube_ldap.inc, I was just wondering if it was possible and / or planned with RC.
You answered me about the future of RC *not* allowing to change contacts in LDAP, and thus the patch may not be welcome. I understand your point.
I am not a RoundCube developer, as such I can't comment on whether this would be a desirable feature in their eyes or not. I think the point I was trying to make was that's it is outside the normal usage model and as a consequence would likely be low on the feature list, perhaps Thomas has input on this topic.
At the moment in the code when you add a contact it is inserted into the database RoundCube is using (e.g. the per user personal address book). At a minimum you would need some logic or some UI to select a different database (e.g. LDAP) and utililize different "database syntax" (LDAP is not SQL).
Creating and modifying LDAP entries is not difficult, I don't expect this would be hard to add. What would be difficult is getting naive users to understand the model once you introduce multiple editable databases. I suspect this is the primary reason you don't see this feature with existing mail clients.
However, I do recognize how valuable it would be to have all mail clients using just one "address book".
It's true that I don't plan to use LDAP as usual, but as you said just (in part) for a central repository for contacts and use ACLs to forbid reading of other users' addresses. This is not for a company but just for my own server where I host some services (mail, web, DNS, etc.) for friends and family ;-)
Yes, ACL's would be the route to go. But just remember this requires specialized setup by the LDAP administrator to support a specific client.
Another issue would be the modifications which would be needed to the LDAP schema, the existing schema's most likely would be inappropriate (because you want the contact information bound to a particular user's address book and not global).
It sounds like you're in the position to do this, but as you say this is not typical.
Well it's not a problem, I'm going to write a web UI to do that on my site :-)
By all means, go for it, perhaps others will find this useful.
Regards,
-
Alexandre Jousset -
Hamish -
John Dennis