Bind Local Address Book to Server?

A priority for our firm, and a main reason we are setting ups an SLS, is to be able to use Group Address Books to share contacts across the Groups we would like to set up. The documentation says this is possible, but as I see in other posts, this doesn't actually appear to have been implemented yet. Has anyone noticed Page 11 of the Address Book Server Administration Manual, posted at Apple's SLS documentation page:
"To use Address Book Server on a client, you need to bind the client to Address Book Server. Before binding a client computer, make sure Address Book Server is running (see “Starting or Stopping Address Book Server” on page 15).
To bind Address Book on a client to Address Book Server:
1 Open Address Book on the client computer.
The only versions of the Address Book application that support using Address Book
Server are those in Mac OS X version 10.6. Earlier versions of Address Book don’t
support binding to Address Book Server.
2 Choose Address Book > Preferences, and then click Accounts.
3 Click the Add button.
4 In the Add Account dialog, select Mac OS X Server as the Account Type.
5 Enter the user’s name and password. Enter the URL of the Address Book Server.
6 Click Create.
An account is now added to the account list. The Address Book application now shows a new group with the user’s name and your server designated. Any groups in the shared address book are displayed below this via a disclosure triangle."
All of this sounds great: once "bound" to the server, manual appears to be saying that the local Address Book app will show the user's address book as well as any Group the user is a part of. Perfect. Only problem is that when I go to create an Address Book account with the type "Mac OS X Server", there is no such option under the pull down account type menu.
I have all the latest versions of everything on the server as well as client computers, and this option simply isn't there. Address Book Server is running, and there are no configuration choices that would appear to "turn on" this option or otherwise make it available to the client computers. Anybody have an explanation? Has Apple just not implemented this yet? If not, why Apple would put this in their current documentation? Am I missing a configuration setting of some type?

Hi
Unfortunately for you the admin manuals are not that clear - what a surprise. It's not really your fault but you're taking the instructions too literally. By "Address Book Server" the manual means the Server the Address Book Service is running on. This would be whichever server is the Open Directory Master.
Preceeding the part you quoted is:
+"Address Book Server is integrated with Mac OS X Server’s foundation technologies. Address Book users are authenticated from Open Directory and Kerberos."+
This certainly implies an OD Master environment.
In a multiple server environment (Master/Replica or Connected Server) it's not clear if the Service can only be used/accessed on the OD Master.
To 'bind/join' clients to an OD Master (and in essence the Address Book Server) you use Directory Utility. In 10.6 client this is accessed via the Accounts tab. In 10.5 the application exists as standalone in the Utilities folder. In 10.4 the application is in the same place but is known as Directory Access. As far as the manual says only Address Book in 10.6 seems to be supported?
For LDAP Services to work as they should DNS Services must be configured correctly and resolving on both pointers. For the best experience clients must be using the Server for their DNS (assuming the Server is the only Server on the network) or a suitable DNS Server that can resolve the Server properly.
I personally don't think there is a Group Address Book feature available. If the iCal service is anything to go by you're really talking about individual address books which have then been delegated read/write access to other users in the LDAP node. If you consider carefully what it is you want there is no reason why you can't offer a 'group-type' address book with what's available?
Tony

Similar Messages

Sharing Address book via Server generates duplicated groups.

Hi,
I generated a user to share the addressbook within the company. While connecting works for all users, just as the second connects, all groups are duplicated.
It does not happen every time, it seems, at least if the same user connects again it seems he only create new dupliaces if we cleaned up the duplicates before.
Is there any known solution?
Or a better way of sharing contacts (I am surprised Apple advertises this feature "Allow multiple users to access and update contacts") and I only read messages with people saying they have this trouble and no solution
All the best
Christoph

Take a look at ABxLDAP (http://www.addressbookserver.com). ABxLDAP let's you export your contacts from your Address Book to a LDAP directory. Included with ABxLDAP you will find AddressBook4LDAP which let's you browse the directory. Unfortunately the Address Book does not allow access to all attributes available from LDAP.
You might also try out Address Book Server available on the same website.
Have fun
Alex

Address Book and iCal Server backups

I'm working to implement a company-wide Address Book, iCal, and iChat server via Lion Server where I work, and I've gotten most of the setup figured out (I think), and am approaching the point where I can roll it out to a few users for further testing. However, before I'm allowed to move forward any further w/ it I have to have two means of backing up in place and ready to be rolled out at the same time as the server—so I'm planning on using Time Machine as one so it does the entirety of the server and its data/settings, but they also want me to do one of the Address Book Server and iCal Server databases individually, like back up the folder the data is, so we can, if ever necessary, import the backup databases to another computer, so we at least have the content, if not the full server functionality. And, for obvious reasons, it can't be backed up locally.
So I'm looking for a means of doing this and would love any input anyone has. Ease of use/setup is pretty important as this is my first time setting Server up and I've no programming knowledge. I'm fairly sure I'll be able to find (or write my own, though that's unlikely) or modify and AppleScript that simply copies/duplicates a Finder item, and I know I can have iCal automatically run a script (so I'd just have it run every night at midnight or something), but I have yet to figure out how to get the script to copy the folder to a specified location on a different server (or, for that matter, if it's even possible, though I'm sure it is...right?). But that's not what I'm trying to ask here...though I certainly wouldn't mind if someone had thoughts on it and wanted to share them ! I just really would like to know which folders to back up, since it's not simply making an archive of the local Address Book.app database.
And, since I'm already here writing a post, I'll ask one other question that's been nagging at me: in Server Admin.app, with the server (not the services) selected in the sidebar on the left, the Access pane selected in the primary Server Admin window, and Services selected, and trying to dictate which users/groups can access which services, the user can click the "+" in the lower-left corner of the window where added users would appear, and another window pops up next to the Server Admin window that shows a list of the users (and groups if you click the appropriate button). My question is, why does it show me _krb_anonymous, _krb_changepw, and a total of 81 other items? I understand more or less what they are (in a very general sense), but why are they shown as users? More importantly, do they have to be listed there? Technically I'm probably the only one that's going to be the administrator, and I'll know not to add them or modify them, but I don't want anything related to those items appearing in a directory search in Address Book when I get it set up (as they are showing up now; for instance, one user I created is Sandy, and I have it set to include directory contacts in searches, so on a client machine that is correctly communicating w/ the server (add a user, it appears in a minute on another client machine, and vice versa) if I go to search for that name as soon as I type "s" Sandy, the actual user shows up, but so do five or six other things, all of which are items from the aforementioned list in Server Admin (pretty much anything that has an "s" in it, which of course makes sense)—and that's what I don't want, I don't want the users to search for someone, see something like _krb_anonymous pop up, then think something is screwed up and call me and demand I come fix their computer!).
Any thoughts, suggestions, and such are more than welcome and much appreciated!
Thank you to all...

See the following:
Folders You Can Move to Your new Mac
From the Home folder copy the contents of Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures, and Sites.
In your /Home/Library/ folder:
/Home/Library/Application Support/AddressBook (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Application Support/iCal (copy the whole folder)
Also in /Home/Library/Application Support (copy whatever else you need including folders for any third-party applications)
/Home/Library/Keychains (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Mail (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Preferences/ (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/iTunes (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/Safari (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/Calendars (copy the whole folder)
If you want cookies:
/Home/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist
/Home/Library/Application Support/WebFoundation/HTTPCookies.plist
For Entourage users:
Entourage is in /Home/Documents/Microsoft User Data
Also in /Home/Library/Preferences/Microsoft
For FireFox:
/Home/Library/Applications Support/FireFox
/Home/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.firefox.plist
Credit goes Macjack for this information.

Lion Server: How do I import into the central address book?

Hello
I could successfully import addresses into the local address book of my Mac Mini (using the import function of the address book application).
However, I want the addresses to be in the central, shared address book of the Lion Server. I can't find a way to import there.
Does anyone have an idea?
Thanks! Martin

Never mind, I figured it out: Open the local addresses, select all, drag/drop to the desktop. Then open the server address book and drag/drop from the desktop.

Display server based address-book birthday entries in iCal

Hello
Does anybody has a solution for the following situation to solve:
iCal on the user machine is only able to display birthday entries out of the local address-book not out of a address-book stored on a server (Mac OS-X).
Any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks for attention and respond
Thomas

Hi, I would need that, too.
It's working on the iPhone, but not on MacOS with iCal... anyone from apple could help, please?
Thanks!
morphium

HT2486 connect address book to connect server

When I update my contacts on my Connect Server, it doesn't seem to sync with Apple Address Book (Lion). I'm sure I have the account and server information correct (I'm using the same connections as I use for iCal, which seems to sync nicely). Am I doing something wrong or does Apple Address Book not sync to Connect Servers?
Thanks,
Jeff

Under Tools (or AppMenu/Options)/Options/Composition/Addressing, make sure "Local Address Books" is checked.
Another option is to show the Contacts sidebar in the Write window (press F9).

10.7.2 Server - Address book sevice limits ?

Ok, wondering if anyone has run into this? According to Enterprise support there are no limits to the number of contacts or groups for the address book service. I seem to have found otherwise. A customer running Lion on his iMac. Had some 42,000 contacts and maybe 1000 groups running on his local address book with no problems. He got a MacMini server which I have setup.
Having never heard of any limits I told him to just start moving the groups from the local address book to the server account I had setup on his iMac. It choked at around 400 groups with 9600 contacts total (according to address book). Called support went through everything, cannot find a reason why it stopped propagating new contacts/groups. So I go and setup 5 different groups to shrink the size of each address book. So that is working fine and they are moving things over. But he called today with the same problem. Turns out the last address account group of contacts/groups had many more that what he had indicated. So it choked again, showing around 10,100 cards. Same symptom, adding a contact and/or group does not propogate out from the server. Needless to say he is not very happy. Back when we started I told him this was uncharted waters for me since the largest I had setup at this point has been around 2000 or so. The support rep I had talked to also had never run into anything so large on Server.

Thank you for responding Bruce. Ok, here is the scenario in list format.
A - Prior to Lion Server setup
1. EU has a iMac running Lion. Address book is a "On my Mac" copy. Contains about 42k contacts and 1k groups. Another tech came out but, unfortunately, was not capable of setting up Lion Server.
B - Server setup - round 1
1. When I got out there I was unable to log into the Server app or the Server Admin tool, but, oddly enough could get into WGM. At any rate, since nothing had been properly setup on the server, I just did a nuke and pave. No problems with that.
2. Ran all of the updates, installed Server Admin and WGM.
3, Setup VPN, local file sharing, and address book services. Created an account on the server for the contacts, verified can log in ok and can add that carddav account locally on the server.
4. Setup the same account on a MBP. Had no problem connecting to the server. Had the EU's assistant start moving groups, one at a time, from the "On my Mac" address book to the server account address book on the MBP. Making sure it propogated completely before starting on the next one. She started with the Z's and worked her way up the alphabet. Each group may have anywhere from 2 to over 100 individuals. The individual contacts have very little information in them, basically name, a date, email address, organization name.
5. I had them setup a second MBP with the same account to verify that the server is propogating the additions to the server account. She would move a group on the primary MBP and then check the secondary to see that it showed up.
6. The first time it failed she noticed that the accounts moved from the "On my Mac" to the server account on the primary MBP. Then the group would not be propogated to the other MBP. Setting up the server account will also stop at the same place.
7. You can move the groups back out and try adding just a single user and/or a single group. Same symptom, will not propogate out from the server. To me this means that it is hung up in the que on the primary MBP so it is not actually hitting the server. There were no errors on the MBP or the server logs. About 9600 users and 400 groups.
C - Server setup round 2
1. Since we were unable to migrate all of the contacts and group to one address book I decided the best course of action was to break it up into 5 different address books - Z-W, V-S, R-N, etc. The thinking is that this will make each address book smaller and cause fewer problems. So I created the accounts and had them repeat the process as in 4 and 5 above.
2. The second MBP is showing the information being propogated. I had also setup up one account at a time on my Mac at home to monitor. Everything is working fine until we get to the last group, FF-AA.
3. It turns out that his A group alone has some 4-5 k contacts alone. So we end up with the same symptoms as in 6 and 7 above. Except this time it hit around 10.1k before it stopped propogating.
4. Same symptom. They can remove the non-propogating groups out of the MBP. Attempts to add a user and/or group post to the machine locally but do not hit the server and therefore no one else gets it.
D - Server setup round 3
1. Created one additional group of BB-AA, truncated the other to FF-CC, and was able to complete the transfer of all groups and contatcs to thier respective new group.

How do I overwrite iCloud address book with local mac one?

When I first got 10.7, I had turned on Google sync in address book. Every person with a prefix or suffix on their name ended up with lots of extra cards (where the suffix became the last name, etc). After migrating my MobileMe to iCloud, I cleaned these out in my local address book app. They are still showing up in my iCloud account and iPhone, however.
How do I either reset the iCloud address book or force the sync from my desktop to overwrite the iCloud service's contents?
Cheers
J

Pull up your iCloud account on the Internet... log in... and then delete all of your contacts from Contacts. Then turn on your iCloud sync on your computer (or iPhone)... it will ask you if you want to 'merge' your contacts... say 'yes'... and viola, your contacts from your computer have been merged with you contacts from iCloud (which was empty)... so now your iCloud Contacts should reflect exactly what was on your computer (or iPhone).

Sync address book with carddav on server

We want a read-only company wide address book which some users can write like the 'delegate' option in iCal. 'Share your contacts easily'. We don't want to go the suggested open directory/LDAP route as almost all of the few thousand contacts are external contacts.
The solution mentioned elsewhere is to have a dedicated user that everyone adds to their address book. The dedicated user imports a clean copy of the contacts (with groups) which ends up in the account 'on my mac'. A lion server account for this user is added to the accounts tab of the address book preferences. These two don't seem to synchronise unfortunately (unlike iCloud accounts).
When selecting all contacts and draging this to the server account, I lose all groups and get duplicates of all contacts. The latter can be cleaned by trashing the imported contacts in the account 'on my mac'. Still, I don't have the groups in the carddav lion server account.
How do I proceed? Do I overlook something obvious?

Drag and drop from the .abbu file containing the clean address book export onto any account shows that no cards could be imported. The contacts can only be imported via the 'import' menu item (doh).
Subsequently, the 'obvious' way to preserve groups is not to select the addresses and drag and drop them into the Address Book Lion Server account, but instead to drag and drop each group separately into the Lion Server account. Beware of any contacts not in any group though, they have to be added separately. Still this is a workaround for the 'share my contacts'.

Manage central address books

hi,
we are a small office with 5 users and bought leopard server. maybe somebody can help us with the following task:
we want to have a central repository of address, which anyone who subscribes to can use. i.e. add, edit, remove contacts and when not in the office view offline.
at the same time, each one will have its own local contacts in her local address book.
what do i need to do on the server and client side?
thanx for the help
philip

The Leopard Server administrator can set up user accounts and enter basic contact information. Read Chapter 5 - "Managing Users" - in the Leopard Server Getting Started Guide available here: http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/GettingStartedv10.5.pdf The server administrator also has the capability of creating and editing shared contact information using the Directory application running locally on the server.
If your client workstations are running OS X Tiger (10.4.x), then users can access the shared contact info by adding the server as an LDAP directory to Address Book using "Preferences > LDAP". Once you've done this, after a user types the first two characters of a person's name in Address Book or Mail, the system will show all possible matches on the server. So, for example, if they type "Da", they'll see all the Dave's, Dan's, Dalton's, etc., listed on the server. Using this technique, there isn't a way to view the entire directory, however, the way you normally do in Address Book.
If you have Windows-based workstations, they can access the LDAP directory in a similar manner using Outlook or whatever mail program you happen to be using.
If you want to go one step further and allow your users to view the entire directory or create or edit their own shared directory entries, then they'll also need to be running Leopard (also referred to as "Leopard Client") in order to be able to run the "Directory" application. Before you upgrade your workstations to Leopard, I strongly advise that you first make full backups of your users systems, either as .sparseimages made to a Firewire drive or to the server. I recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner v2.5 or v3.0 (available at http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html). If you use this tool correctly, you'll have a recoverable image to fall back to in case there are any Leopard installation glitches.
Once you've installed Leopard on a workstation, you can connect the workstation to the server either at installation time, via an invitation e-mail, or using the Directory Utility. The Leopard Server Getting Started Guide describes the process in Chapter 6 - "Managing Users' Computers". Once you've done this, your users' account type will change to "Managed" in their System Preferences > Accounts pane. What this will enable them to do is run the Directory application in Leopard, which will allow them to view / add / edit shared contact information the way that I suspect you want.
Before you do all of this, you should read up a bit, I would think; the full suite of Leopard Server documentation is available here: http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/
Hope this helps.

Address autocomplete feature proposes old invalid addresses not even in Address Book

When I start writing a recipient's name in an email I'm composing, Firefox accesses an unknown database to propose several addresses I have used previously. These often include old addresses for my recipient that are no longer valid. In fact, more often than not these invalid addresses appear first, so if I just press Enter without thinking, that's where the message will be sent. Additionally, the proposed addresses often do not include addresses for the recipient that are in my Firefox Address Book. So it's a dual problem: I get bad addresses from some mysterious database, plus I don't get valid addresses from the Address Book. I need to know where this database that Firefox is accessing is located on my computer and how to edit it to remove all those invalid addresses I keep using inadvertently, and also how to get the autocomplete function to search the Address Book, which it is not doing. I should mention that in Tools - Options - Composition - Addressing, I have "Local Address Books" check-marked, and "Directory Server" is not checked. This is the only tool I've found in Firefox that seems to be related to this problem.

Thank you for replying, Zenos, but I assure you I removed these obsolete addresses from the Address Book (including subdirectories I'd made in it). Hoping I was wrong, I anxiously tried your solution, but it doesn't seem to work. I'm not given an "Edit contact" option when I right-click on the address in a message I've put in the Drafts folder. The only options I'm given are "Add to Address Book..." (which is the opposite of what I want to do!), "Compose Mail To", "Copy Email Address", and "Create Filter from Message...". If I could actually do what you propose - access the actual record Firefox is using in the database and alter it - that would be perfect. I still believe it is accessing some other database, not Address Book. But thanks for trying to help!

Address Book -- Exchange Sync

I'm not sure if this belongs here or in the iSync forum.
I have NEVER gotten Address Book <--> Exchange Sync working. Documentation is almost non-existent (yes i have read the ONE support document). Under what versions (and configurations) of MS Exchange does this work?
I have Small Business Server 2003 with Forms Based Authentication set up and available. I can verify via sniffer that my Mac connects to it, I see the connection on the firewall, and the IIS logs from OWA. Yet the Mac still gives me the Cannot connect to Exchange errors.
OWA is only available via SSL (real certificate installed).
Mail.app works perfectly (yet I still have no idea what the OWA field in the account settings does).

Launch iSync in /Applications.
Open iSync Preferences.
Enable "Show status in menubar."
Select in menu and hit the "Sync Now" option.
This will force a sync with local Address Book against Exchange.
Also, in the preferences for Address Book's Exchange sync configuration section, be sure to have the "Synchronize ever hour" option enabled.
Just tried and works beautifully on 10.5 against our campus Exchange 2003 servers.
Your config will vary, but see our documentation for the basic setup:
http://mail.exchange.uconn.edu/faq/clients/mac/addbooksync.htm
- C

Sharing Address Book with non-Mobile Me members

I maintain a mailing list for my volleyball friends via a group in my Address Book on my MacBook Pro. I have MobileMe. Most of my friends on the mailing list are PC users and don't have MobileMe. I want to provide everyone on the list a webpage (or whatever) that they can visit to see my current mailing list - we all like to keep in contact with each other. It would be nice if it could be kept current, with name, address, phone numbers, birthdays, photos, etc. I have not been able to figure out a way to do this - to create a shared Address Book that is accessible to everyone in the group, regardless of whether they are a MobileMe user or not. Can you recommend anything? Is there a way to design say a webpage that is perhaps built off an extract of my Address Book? Ideally, I would love for it to remain in sync, but if I can't do that perhaps I could at least manually refresh it periodically. Any ideas would be most appreciated, even if complicated. I can learn. Thanks! Paul

But that is exactly what Address Book Server does. It synchronises (via iSync) with your clients local Address Book, so besides having all your data in a relational database, all your connected clients are also kept in sync an up-to-date. Address Book Server support most modern relational database engine but used H2 by default. Many users have configured MySQL and PostgreSQL is also an option. Depending on your choice of frameworks and technology you should be able to integrate it. However for those less enterprising, there is a friendly web interface already available in the "Enterprise Edition".
To answer your question regarding how this is accomplished. The Address Book API allows direct access to contact information on OS X and the iPhone. However the data can also be accessed via the iSync API. Depending on your requirements either might be suitable for your requirements as well. You could also access the SQLLite backend directly, however this is not a supported method and not recommended. You would also have to figure the schema out for yourself.
Maybe you should just try it out and see how it can be improved.
Disclaimer : As the developer of Address Book Server I have a natural bias...

Mail and address book crash after upgrade

I just upgraded from 10.4.11 to 10.5.5. My mail and address book apps do not load now. Both get the spinning circle and "application not responding". This is about the 3rd or 4th problem since upgrading to 10.5. Anyone have any solutions so I can get those apps to launch correctly?

Fixed it. Created a new account, put my exchange mail on Mail on that account, sync Address Book with server, took the Sources folder and moved it to Address Book in Application Support onmy main account and now all work great. A lot of work but is now working. Thanks to all!

Mail and Address Book crash right after installing SL

Installed on desktop and all worked perfect - love it!
Installed on laptop (MacBookPro) and now Mail and Address Book crash at launch. I have removed the mail plist and the address book files indicated here elsewhere and nothing works. Any ideas????

Fixed it. Created a new account, put my exchange mail on Mail on that account, sync Address Book with server, took the Sources folder and moved it to Address Book in Application Support onmy main account and now all work great. A lot of work but is now working. Thanks to all!

Bind Local Address Book to Server?

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