Use LDAP to sync addressbook between Tbird, Skype, Palm etc?

[dan_aka_jack]

Hi folks,

Like most computer users, I have serveral programs that each have their own addressbook. e.g. Skype, Thunderbird, my palm, my webmail client, my Nokia phone etc.

I'd really like to keep all these addressbooks syncronised. I get the impression that the answer is to store all my contact details on an LDAP server and then teach each application how to read and modify that LDAP server.

As I understand it, Thunderbird talks to LDAP out of the box, as do many email web clients.

But how do I get Skype & my Palm to syncronise with LDAP??? Any advice would be extremely welcome!

Many thanks,
Jack
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[azwr]

I'm currently looking into a similar setup, just without the skype part. I haven't gotten it really even started yet, but here's what I'm looking at which may work.

OpenLDAP - set-up my address book here, probably having this be the 'master' list.
Multisync/opensync - this is a multiple sync framework that appears to already have plugins for palm and ldap syncing. http://multisync.sourceforge.net/ http://www.opensync.org/

Then I'll use either Thunderbird or mutt with the lbdb and the ldap plugin to get to the contact info for emailing.

I'd think that it couldn't be too bad to either get Skype to talk ldap directly, or if not that, then to create a plugin to sync from multisync/opensync to whatever format Skype stores in.

Once I get rolling I'll let you know how the Palm->ldap stuff works out!

EDIT: I think that there may also be a sync plugin for Nokia phones via multi/open sync.

[baitas]

I should mention that this may not be as simple as it seems

LDAP stands for lightwieght, not simple... Even if it is quite simple to create one address book for _ONE_ client.

From experience, I have learned that the most common clients out there each use a different schema on the LDAP address book. For some reason I had a world of trouble to get both evolution and mozilla firebird (is this the mail client?) talking to the same server, and never got a way to get them to actually see all the fields the other creates.

So if you use the same mail client across all platforms, I would say: go ahead...

If you use multiple mail clients, expect partial functionality: read-only, partial contacts, or missing contacs.

Should you decide to go ahead, be ready to read quite a lot on the ldap protocol, especially on securing it, you do not want your addressbook on the internet