http://united-geeks.org/blog

This post is meant to be a little overview on different viewers and editors to work with openldap. I tested all of these and just wanna give you my 0.02$... Of course there's nothing like the real thing - which is writing ldif files and adding them with slapadd, but then again...

phpldapadmin



- web app.
- needs php and a httpd
- slowish when browsing large trees
- does not understand non-standard schemas (which makes it totally useless IMO)


directory-assistent



- python / gtk app.
- needs: gtk-2, python, pygtk, python-ldap
- small and lightweight
- not many options
- view sucks somewhat


GQ



- gtk app
needs: >=gtk+-2.6, openldap, openssl, libxml2, >=glib-2.6, pango, cyrus-sasl, gnome-keyring, libglade, libgcrypt"
- many dependencies
- countless options
- supports more than one ldap-server in config
- works with any schema
- best app i've seen to manage your ldap


thunderbird-3.0a1 (addressbook component)

(screenshot obsolete, not much to see there what you haven't seen already)

- read support 'out-of-the-box'
- though there is experimental support for writing to ldap servers (you need to change 1 line in 1 file and compile it yourself)
- seamless integration into thunderbird / emails
- needs mozilla-schema on ldap-server (THIS IS A HUGE MESS! much confusion there; moz-devs: please fix this and write a clear howto on developer.mozilla.org. The one that is currently there is almost useless.)



evolution

[UPDATE: i am currently writing a more detailed guide to using thunderbird and ldap for contacts management. It is not very complicated, but there are certain pitfalls and the documentation is lousy...]

I've been looking for this since ages, finally i found the holy grail of something that comes close to perfect unified contact management.

The idea:
- have an openldap server with all my contacts
- lookup contacts from any of my computers (that includes my Gentoo workstation, my Apple Powerbook and even Windows)
- WRITE / STORE / EDIT contacts from any computer on the ldap server in a CONVENIENT way
- don't fuck up

Previously i had an openldap server running and was able to lookup contacts from most of my addressbook-clients (thunderbird, kmail, sylpheed, OE, etc.), but none of them was able to store / edit contacts on the ldap directly. I had to do this either by feeding it an ldfi-file, or by using phpldapexplorer. The first way sucks badly, and the second is not much better (mostly because it takes too much time writing the ldif by hand, and with phpldapexplorer you'll have to wait and wait and wait for your browser to open up the list - if you have hundrets of contacts)...

So, what was needed was an addressbook application that can store and edit, too. Rumors float around the net that evolution can do so, but on a non-gnome system evolution is much PITA. I also found references that stated kaddressbook (the KDE-Addressbook) was able to do that, but either it is plain untrue, or i did not find the right options...

Anyway, after long search, i found this thread. In a nutshell: Thunderbird-3 has an experimental feature that enables write-support to openldap! w00t!

I compiled it with said option and it really works, here's a brief howto:

- Get openldap up and running
- Get the mozillaAbPersonAlpha.schema from here
- compile thunderbird-3 as described in the link above. More help on compiling can be found here
- Fill in all the info in the configuration - dialogue of the thunderbird addressbook (you need an ldap-account with write-support of course)
- In addressbook, search and edit exisiting contacts, or store new one on your openldap

Downside:
Seems that once you edited a contact, phpldapexplorer cannot "handle" this very contact anymore. Have to find out more why that is. But: other addressbook-clients display the newly edited contacts fine and without errors, so in the end i might not need phpldapexplorer anymore anyway...