Hello,
I have a technical hurdle to overcome and I'm hoping openldap is the answer.
I have contacts in a sql db, I'm wanting to make them available in outlook, blackberries, and other clients such as thunderbird. What I'm currently thinking is to setup an openldap server and import the data into that.
I'm not expecting much trouble getting the data into LDAP. But how much effort/time is normally involved in the actual implementation of hooking these devices/applications to an openldap directory so non-technical users can use it? If anyone else has done this, how did it go? Has it been 'quirky'?
I've read over the FAQ and what google offers, it seems mostly dealing with overcoming specific technical issues, I haven't found much on how well it works overall.
Thank you for your time, - Adrien
A Gilmore wrote:
I have contacts in a sql db, I'm wanting to make them available in outlook, blackberries, and other clients such as thunderbird. What I'm currently thinking is to setup an openldap server and import the data into that.
Some issues are with the different schema used by the different LDAP-enabled address book clients.
I'm not expecting much trouble getting the data into LDAP.
A simple example script can be found here which pumps an eGroupware address book stored in a mySQL DB to an OpenLDAP server:
http://www.stroeder.com/pylib/egadr2ldap.py
But how much effort/time is normally involved in the actual implementation of hooking these devices/applications to an openldap directory so non-technical users can use it?
Not sure I understand your question. For each application you should watch out how to configure this application centrally. For Outlook I'd look whether you can define some group policy objects. AFAIK there's no such mechanism for Thunderbird. Not sure about Blackberry. But for mobile devices you should rather provide a sync service since the devices might not have network access to your LDAP directory all the time.
Ciao, Michael.
Michael Ströder wrote:
A Gilmore wrote:
I have contacts in a sql db, I'm wanting to make them available in outlook, blackberries, and other clients such as thunderbird. What I'm currently thinking is to setup an openldap server and import the data into that.
Some issues are with the different schema used by the different LDAP-enabled address book clients.
I'm not expecting much trouble getting the data into LDAP.
A simple example script can be found here which pumps an eGroupware address book stored in a mySQL DB to an OpenLDAP server:
http://www.stroeder.com/pylib/egadr2ldap.py
But how much effort/time is normally involved in the actual implementation of hooking these devices/applications to an openldap directory so non-technical users can use it?
Not sure I understand your question. For each application you should watch out how to configure this application centrally. For Outlook I'd look whether you can define some group policy objects. AFAIK there's no such mechanism for Thunderbird. Not sure about Blackberry. But for mobile devices you should rather provide a sync service since the devices might not have network access to your LDAP directory all the time.
Ciao, Michael.
Are there known issues with schemas in different address book clients conflicting in such a way it's difficult to make the directory work properly for both conflicting clients at the same time?
The offline access isn't a requirement, and inputting the settings to connect to the directory isn't a problem. My question was more about if when setup that outlook/blackberry would work well with the openldap directory, or if it's like web development, in which you have to make all kinds of tedious tweaks and hacks to make it work with the MS product.
Thank you for your time, - Adrien
openldap-technical@openldap.org
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A Gilmore -
Michael Ströder