Shared Contacts in Snow Leopard Server’s Address Book Server

[hetjan]

I’m playing with 10.6.1 Server and so far everything works great (mail, web, wiki, etc) except one thing: The Address Book Server.

I’ve set up the server, turned on SSL, connected a client to the [temporary] domain and created a vCard that “syncs” correctly with the Address Book Server, but I’m having trouble understanding how the “Shared Contacts” (the Directory lookups) work.

From what I’ve been able to gather, there is no such thing as “a shared address book” on Snow Leopard server; the vCard-based system is limited to serving Address Books on a per-user basis. I’ve seen discussion on Apple’s discussion website about how you can create two accounts; one for your regular user and one that is supposed to store the “Shared” address book, but it feels very clunky.

Apple’s documentation on Address Book Server mentions how you can migrate your 10.5 LDAP based Shared contacts to the Address Book Server but while I haven’t tried that I’m at loss as to how you’re supposed to enter information into the newly migrated system. I can’t find any knobs in neither the Address Book.app nor Workgroup Manager.

Am I totally off in summarizing the Address Book server being totally unusable other than a pseudo-backup/syncing solution?

[filipp]

AB Server is the New iCal Server 🙁

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I found out about this. There is no shared address book in AB Server. The only way to do it is to use the same account on all your clients. 🙁

And btw, accessing AB Server contacts through the AddressBook Framework doesn’t work even though the AB Server Documentation clearly states that it should. 🙁

[Raph]

I am in the same situation, ldap lookups work but no signs of shared contacts at all. Additionally some fields (such a company) are not even mapped to the ldap lookup component of address book. Hardly what i would call a “solution for shared contacts”

So far (since 10.4) I’ve been deceived by OS X server for workgroup usage goes, i think this is very sad as i see apple markets it especially for this segment

I dont see how this can be considered an alternative to exchange as contacts aren’t even accessible through the web interface or on the iphone (expect trough itunes sync)

Apple could have at least worked on squirrel mail to add the address book ldap patch (see http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=485234) short of integrating their address book server (but they will eventually need to integrate both).

To me, address book server feels like a tech preview, not a workgroup solution

[filipp]

The funny thing is Apple never said Address Book Server can be used for Shared Contacts:
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/addressbook-server.html

“incredibly easy to access and synchronize contacts across multiple computers and the devices you own.”

… with the emphasis on *you*. 🙂

But it’s ofcourse what everything thinks it should be.

[InsigniamEric]

This is why we are going to continue to use (we’ve been using it for a year plus already with OS X Server 10.5.x) the Address Book Server available at AddressBookServer.com. It is somewhat costly but it gives us the functionality that we need.

… e

P.S. – I am not affiliated with AddressBookServer.com, just a satisfied customer.

[pew]

I did go back and read the marketing text and Apple did not promise to sync between users, only machines. In the end,address book server simply allows you to do the synching that MobileMe has allowed subscribers to do for years. It is valuable to an organization that isn’t going to purchase .me accounts for everyone. Get your address book from work while at home.

But I agree, people want to share a centralized directory between users. There is always ABS 2.0 I suppose.

One does have to wonder about calling out the feature, [i]”Access to client address books anywhere there is a Web connection”[/i] from page 10 of the Address Book Server Admin. I don’t find a web interface for a web browser anywhere. Are they trying to be clever b/c CardDAV is based on web protocols?

[Author]

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