kaddressbook + openldap

[Timothy Murphy]

Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:

> On Thu, 2008-10-09 at 13:44 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>> I want to create a kaddressbook/kmail distribution list
>> from my openldap address book,
>> choosing those entries with "o=course-111".
>> Does anyone know if this is possible?
>> 
>> I can see my LDAP address book from kaddressbook,
>> and see that there is an option to add names
>> to a distribution list.
>> But as far as I can see one can only choose entries
>> based on Name or Email Address -
>> there does not seem to be any option for choosing
>> eg by an o=Organisation attribute, as I want to do.
>> [I do see the Organisation value listed if I give a Name.]
>> 
>> Incidentally, as far as I can see,
>> if one creates a distribution list it is specific
>> to a given machine.
>> Is there any way of creating a system-wide distribution list?
>> I guess if I could get the distribution list from my LDAP address list
>> this would serve the purpose,
>> but I wondered if there was a more direct way.

> Are you sure you want to do it this way? In my experience this kind of
> list tends to wind up being a pain to administer because you're
> basically doing everything from the mail client, which is the wrong
> place for it (for one thing, it's difficult to share the list access
> with anyone else, e.g a TA). If your institution supports it -- and I'd
> be surprised if Trinity didn't -- you should use the standard mailing
> list system they have, e.g. Mailman or whatever. It might take a little
> more setup but you'll thank me in the end :-)

Well, the TCD Maths computer system certainly runs mailman.
(Actually, I set it up.)

But I am thinking about my own system at home.
I think my query is one that will become more significant,
as more people set up multi-machine systems at home.
Essentially, I would like to have all information
on one "server", and access this information
from various laptops.
To this end, I've set up an openldap address book
(much more difficult than I expected,
as openldap people seem to speak a strange language).
I'd like to use this address book for all purposes,
eg as a phonebook as well as source for distribution lists.

I use dovecot IMAP to keep email on one machine,
and basically would like to extend this to distribution lists.
But kaddressbook (I am a KDE user) does not seem to have
any facility for system-wide distribution lists.
(Similarly, knode does not seem to have any facility
to keep different machines "in sync".)

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland