LDAP-Based Address Books for Win32? 33
Snafoo asks: "I'm trying to replace an Access-powered communal address book at my office with something cross-platform and (preferably) LDAP-powered. Unfortunately, I can't find a single email client for windows that would allow people to update the LDAP dB from their address-book interface except, the usual suspect, Outlook. I've tried Mozilla, Eudora, and a slew of other 'freebies', but they only allow browsing; at the moment, I'm considering dropping cygwin+XFree on the desktops of the windows clients and giving them access to Evolution on a central server (God bless Ximian!), however, most of the Win32 boxen are used by non-clueful sorts who would be put out by the inconvenience of what amounts to a second desktop. Aside from shelling out $90 a seat for WinAxe, or another rootless X server for Windows, what do you all recommend?" Those interested in X-Servers for Windows may wish to check out this
previous article, however if you are using an X11 server not mentioned, please feel free to recommend others, here.
I begged Yahoo! to LDAP enable their "AddressBook" (Score:1)
I'd pay Yahoo! or the like to provide such a service - a central repository for my personal addresses, RWable from (almost) any LDAP-enabled client.
Hmmm...if this guy's serious, maybe I'll start this meaningful new dotcom myself!
(VNC? Guys - get with the program!)
Why another desktop? (Score:3, Informative)
Couldn't you simply run Evo or whatever client in the X server WITHOUT running a window manager or desktop environment? Just pass it some window geometry and let it take up the entire X server display?
Re:Why another desktop? (Score:1)
Re:Why another desktop? (Score:3, Informative)
--
Evan (no reference)
VNC (Score:1)
While it's not seamless, it does work well, and its session state is stored on the server, so your local computer crashing won't take it down too. Plus as an added benefit, you can connect to it from other machines.
LDAP (Score:2, Informative)
I'd love to hear what others are doing.
I know that many mail clients out there support LDAP searches, however, I haven't found any good guides to setting up the LDAP servers. If anyone has any pointers, I'd love to hear them.
Re:LDAP (Score:3, Informative)
Any resources on this? I checked google to only small avail (though my query might have sucked).
Re:LDAP (Score:1, Informative)
http://howto.linuxpowered.net/ldap/ldap.ht
it covers many topics, I hope to update it
a bit more in the next couple days.
Re:LDAP (Score:1)
I know of neither stand-alone GUI apps nor mailers that actually allow you to edit entries on the server, although most mailers now at least let you search for addresses. There are, however, several web-based apps that will let you edit. I forget all the names, but I believe SquirrelMail has a plug-in for it and there are several others on Freshmeat.
It shouldn't be too terribly much work to write a cross-platform app in Python to allow editing and browsing of entries; I'd guess 30-40 man-hours if someone wants to fund the development.
I've been developing a set of Perl modules and Webmin interfaces for managing users and groups, and could probably implement something for Usermin, but I've been too busy trying to make a living to work on it lately.
There's a fair amount that goes into learning how LDAP works, understanding the ACLs, etc., but the basics of setting up a server are pretty easy. Understanding and Deploying LDAP is probably the best book out there (title might not be quite right), published by MacMillan. It's a very thick book and not very cheap, but definitely the best book I've found.
Re:LDAP (Score:2)
www.openldap.org [openldap.org] has lots of information about how to set up the openLDAP server on various platforms.
The old Netscape (4.x) clients may do the job for you on Win* and Linux. The Mac's built-in address book is LDAP (at least in 10.2, and possibly in 10.1.x).
iPlanet's (well, now it's SunONE) LDAP server is great if you want to spend the money, in which case spending money on the clients shouldn't be an issue as well.
Re:Pegasus? (Score:3, Informative)
The second problem.... (Score:2)
Create a vnc schortcut on your windows decktop, label it "Ximian" and when when clicked, all the user sees is "Ximian" - it just happens to be Ximian funnign full screen on a VNC X-Windows desktop.
Why make it kludgier than it needs to be? (Score:2)
Besides, you can set up a shortcut to an SSH client that automagically runs your X-app-of-choice.
Re:Why make it kludgier than it needs to be? [OT] (Score:1)
This would require a slight extension to the RFB protocol to be able to send window size updates at any time, as well as a client that could support multiple distinct windows. Each time an X client opens a new window, the Xvnc server would send a new geometry/window ID to the client.
There's probably a more elegant way to do this (perhaps a control connection and multiple RFB connections, a la FTP). Just some thoughts from someone who refuses to use non-rootless X servers on Win32.
SquirrelMail (Score:4, Informative)
You could use this for adding addresses and using your IMAP server remotely, and use any other IMAP client(s) for all other purposes.
-Peter
Webpage for changes? (Score:2, Informative)
It's not quite as bad as stuffing them into some app their not used to through a complex delivery method.
Write something in Java? (Score:2, Informative)
rolodap (Score:3, Informative)
Rolodap [sourceforge.net] looks very promising. I'm probably going to put it up this weekend if I get time.
Don't be a jerk. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm assuming your current system's worst problem (if there's even a problem at all) is that this Access-based system isn't integrated with your e-mail clients. It sure is nice to be able to access and select entries from your addressbook straight into the "To:" and "Cc:" fields of the message composition interface. I'll bet that's what will make users happiest. Maybe you should make user productivity and user happiness your primary goal, and not pick a backend technology first. If users are happy with the current system (and they probably aren't), is it a speed issue you could address by migrating the data to a better database and keeping the Access frontend, or is it an interface and data model issue that points to the complete overhaul you have in mind?
That said, LDAP's a good, flexible, extensible way to store multiuser, multi-departmental addressbooks. Go for it. But unless you're a complete jerk, you'll only use it if you can provide the users with interfaces that are at least as convenient (from their standpoint, not yours) as what they have now, and are preferably better. I don't think ugly XWindow applications (and X itself) glopped onto their Windows desktops are the answer.
You can get a good interface between addressbook and e-mail with Outlook. Heck, you can get that with the web interface to Exchange or Notes. What mail system are you using? Generic IMAP? Fine.
Granted, even with the best antivirus protection pushed out to every machine and aggressive scanning on the servers and WSH disabled in Outlook, you still may not be able to sleep nights knowing Outlook's out there. Maybe you can deploy a nice LDAP-maintenance tool or two for people to edit the addressbooks with (a simple web one and a complex, advanced Java one for power users) along with a mail client that can access the same LDAP store read-only.
Re:Don't be a jerk. (Score:2)
Re:Don't be a jerk. (Score:2)
day long I would hear a steady stream of complaints pertaining to disappearing desktop icons, the difficulties of using a non-Windows WM, etc....
AFAIK, the best/cheapest Win32 rootless X server solution is $90 a head. We don't want to pay that.
Mozilla Alpha (Score:1)
LDaemon (Score:1)
One of the bonuses to using Mdaemon, is a companion product, which can also be used as a stand-alone product, is Ldaemon, based on the OpenLDAP code. (It actually includes the OpenLDAP code that its based on!)
Not to sound like a plug for the product, but since I installed it, most of my mail headaches just went away... (giving me more
Anyways, heres the link
http://www.altn.com/Products/Default.asp?product_
xmanager might help (Score:2, Interesting)
one thing your post has done is remind me of that "final" killer app - M$ Access. We've been doing a good job @ work coming up with as many alternatives to the M$ on the desktop. Before Ximian's wonderfull xchng connector, we used a whacky combo of fetchmail (with NTLM support), imap, and pine to read/send mail and do rudimentary calendaring (it can be presented by xchng as an imap folder). I can read PDF's with open source and use cool print spool hacks to make better PDF's than adobe's writer. OpenOffice/StarOffice get us by on the majority of docs and I see so little of Visio files anymore that it is no longer on the 'killer' list.
Unfortunately, we have a few Excel spreadsheets that neither "Office" likes (*why* do folks insist on creating Excel *databases*!). those users that got a bit smarter made access db's (which I don't need to use frequenetly and - hence - forgot about) - *without* a SQL back-end! - and there's little we can do do mitigate that.
just when i thought our work was almost done...
Web based LDAP adress book editor (Score:1)
Disclaimer: yes, I am working for Savoir-faire Linux, the company that made this software.
Mozilla supports LDAP (Score:1)