On Wed, Dec 03, 2008 at 05:02:52AM +0000, bejnet@yahoo.com wrote:

I want to create distribution list in OpenLDAP. Meaning - If I have a group called admins@ldap.com and there are two members - bejoy@ldap.com and bejnet@ldap.com; and mail is sent to admins@ldap.com = both these members must get the email. Exchange has this feature. This mail id should have a display name feature as well - that would show up on search of address books.

At present the work around is using qmail's schema for this distribution list. I believe inetOrgPerson schema could have a group version too - which would need a compulsory attribute called members which must have atleast one member mentioned under it.

I think you have just described groupOfNames. I do not like groupOfNames *because* it makes the member attribute mandatory, which makes management complicated.

Anyway, I cannot see this as a defect in OpenLDAP. LDAP schema is extensible: if you want something that is not in the standard set you can add it locally. You say that you have used qmail's schema: is there anything wrong with that?

Most LDAP-capable mail systems can be persuaded to use groups as mailing lists, but that is a mail system issue not an OpenLDAP one. It could be argued that simple groups are not rich enough to use for list expansion (no way to keep track of per-member list preferences etc) but if we are going to talk about defining an improved group this is the wrong place to do it: maybe IETF's ldapext list would be better.

Andrew