Tutorial for creating LDAP address book

LDAP is the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol that is used as an open and cross platform protocol for authenticating directory services. It uses IP networks to edit directories and runs directly over TCP/IP using simple string formats for data transfer. It is mostly used, because other database types have their own protocol, so if you change server, you must change all the clients at the same time. On the other hand, LDAP specifies how clients should encode requests and how servers should encode responses. This way, in case of a server change you don’t need to change clients. You can use this protocol with the Ozeki Bulk Messenger, to create an address book with the contents from an active directory.Please follow this step-by-step tutorial to do so.

Step 1 - Make an address book

The first step is to open the Ozeki SMS Bulk Messenger, and select the “Quick Start tab. Now you started the initialization procedure. You must select “Step 1 – Make an address book” button. Press it to proceed to the next step. You can find the button on Figure 1.

selecting the step 1 make an address book
Figure 1 - Selecting 'Step 1 - Make an address book'

Step 2 - Create LDAP address book

Click on the 'Create new Address book' button, which you can find on Figure 2.

The 'Address book details' window will appear on the right. This is where you can select the type of the address book you would like to create. In this case please select 'LDAP'.

creating a new address book
Figure 2 - Creating a new address book

Step 3 - Provide a name for your Address book

In the 'Address book name:' field you can give a name for your address book to make it easier to identify later. The other fields are the property of the new address book.

'Connection settings:'

  • 'LDAP server:' The IP address and port number of your LDAP server
  • 'Username or DN:' The search query will be initiated using this user. If not specified, the search will be anonymous.
  • 'Password:' The password belonging to this user.
  • 'Security:' This type of authentication is required when using Active Directory services.

'Search options:' These settings specify the search behaviour of this provider.

  • 'Search DN:' The LDAP addressbook provider will issue the search requests in this DN. E.g. "cn=myaddressbook,dc=test,dc=com" where com is the root node, test is an organization under the root node, and myaddressbook is an organizational unit of test organization.
  • 'Filter:' The LDAP addressbook provider will look for the classes defined here (delimited by colons or semicolons).

configuring a new address book
Figure 3 - Configuring a new address book

Step 4 - Property Mappings

You can use the LDAP protocol for collecting contacts from an LDAP server. Here you can add server connection settings and search options.

  • Addressbook property (first column: Name, Phone, Email): This is the name of the property used by the addressbook in Ozeki Bulk Messenger.

property mappings
Figure 4 - Property mappings

If you use OpenLDAP server, you can find the LDAP Property names in the attribute column of the Ldapadmin application.

openldap attributes
Figure 5 - OpenLDAP attributes

If you wish to use the Active directory of Windows Server, you can find the attribute names under the attribute editor tab, in the attribute column.

active directory attributes
Figure 6 - Active Directory Attributes

Now that you have successfully connected your database to the Ozeki Bulk Messenger, you can start sending bulk messages to everyone in your contact list.

Step 5 - Manage contacts

Now if you need to manage your contacts, you can do it from the Ozeki app. To get to the contact management window, please click “x contacts”. The x represents the number of contacts you have. You can find the button on Figure 7.

managing contacts
Figure 7 - Managing contacts

On this window, you can manage your imported contacts, add new ones or refresh the list manually, which will search the Active Directory and add in the new contacts. You can see the window on “Figure 8”.

managing contacts
Figure 8 - Imported contacts

We hope that this guide was helpfull. If you have any problem with any of the steps, feel free to contact us at info@ozeki.hu

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