Address Book

Address Book

Rainmail Intranet Server can maintain a centralized address book for access by all your LAN users. This address book can store information about a person's phone, title (aka designation), address, company name and email address.

This information can be retrieved by most email clients including MS Outlook, MS Outlook Express and Lotus Notes. This information can also be used by these email clients to automatically generate the email address given name of a person. Address book generated by "Rainmail Intranet Server" can not only store information of your local users, but also information about your customers, channel partners and suppliers. This section helps you manipulate the address book. The Global Address book can also be replicated across locations for local and faster access.

LDAP is a protocol for distributing directory information to many different resources. Most commonly it is used as a centralized address book, but it can be much more powerful depending on an organization's needs. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is an client/server protocol for accessing a directory service. LDAP in its most basic form is a standard way to connect to a database. The database is optimized for read queries. Thus, it retrieves information very quickly, in contrast to additions or updates which are slower. It is important to note that LDAP most often uses a hierarchal database, rather than a relational database to store data. Therefore, the structure is better represented with a tree than a table. As a result, SQL syntax will be rendered unusable. In short, LDAP is a fast way to retrieve centralized, static data containing information about people and/or resources.

The Address Book stores user information such as full names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers. You can use the Address Book to search for user information or to add e-mail addresses to an item you are composing.

12.2 Adding entries to address book

"Rainmail Server" automatically adds information about all users to the address book. This, however, can be turned of by unchecking "Add User to Address book" when adding an user. When an user information is added thus, only the user's name and email address are present in the address book.

You might want to add further details about this user (telephone number, title, etc.) or you might want to add information about people who are nit your LAN user's (like channel partners, customers, consultants, etc.).

These entries can be added using the configuration program. To add entries, bring up the configuration program and select "Add Address Book Entry" from the left hand side panel. This will bring up the following screen:

In the above dialog, enter all the details about the person you want to add and press "Add". The fields "Name" and "Email" are mandatory. Rest of the fields are optional.

12.3 Modifying entries in address book

"Rainmail Server" configuration program also allows you to modify address book entries already present. To modify a person's information, bring up the configuration program and select "Modify Address Book Entry" from the left hand side panel. That will bring up the following screen:

In the above screen, select the name of person whose information you want to modify from the "Name" combo box. That will list all information about the person. Change whatever information needs to be changed and click on "Change" button.

12.4 Deleting entries from address book

To delete a person's information, bring up the configuration program and select "Delete Address Book Entry". That will bring up the following screen:

In the above screen, select the name of person whose information you want to delete from address book from the "Name" combo box. Click on "Delete" to delete the information. Please note that this does not delete the user from the system. This only delete the person's information from the address book.

12.5 Set Address Book Type

Rainmail Intranet Server can either maintain an independent global address book of all users entered in this server or be a replica of a "master" server maintained elsewhere in the enterprise. This is specifically useful when the enterprise has branches in multiple locations, and address book at all these locations need to have the same content. This can be done by designating one server as the master server and all other servers as "Replica" servers. Once specified, any changes made to the "master" server is automatically propagated to "Replica" servers.

Master-replica servers ensure that directory data is always available when needed. If any server fails, the directory service continues to be available from another replicated server.

Once specified, any changes made to the "master" server is automatically propagated to "Replica" servers. By default, "Rainmail Intranet Server" is configured as a master server. To make sure that changes in "master" server are propagated to "replica" servers, you need to specify the "replica" servers in the "master" server. This way, whenever a change is made to the "master" server, it is automatically pushed down to all the "replica" servers.

By default, Rainmail Intranet Server is configured as a master server. To configure Rainmail Intranet Server as a Replica server, do the following: Select Replica Server radio button. This will enable the "Master Server Address" edit box. Enter the IP Address of the master server in this case 203.198.197.10. Press the "Set" button.

From then on, this version of "Rainmail Intranet Server" will be configured as a "Replica" Server. Any updates made in the "master" server will automatically be done here too.

12.6 Synchronize with Master Server

This section helps you synchronize the address book with the address book maintained by the "Rainmail" designated "Master Server". Synchronization is the process by which the address book are kept up-to-date, so that users on each server can be sure they are viewing the most recent version. When a master server and its ldap server are synchronized, the earlier entries are deleted and most recent copies of each are then synchronized to the server that have requested synchronization of those files.

To synchronize, bring up the configuration program and select "Synchronize with Master Server" from the left hand side panel. This will bring up the following screen:

To synchronize your address book with the Master Server Enter the IP address of the Master Server in the "IP Address" field. Press "Synchronize" to synchronize the data. Successful completion of this operation is indicated by a dialog. You can view the synchronized address book in any of your email clients like Outlook Express.

12.7 Add Replica Server

This section helps you specify a "replica" server to a "master" server if you have configured the Rainmail Server as a master server in the set the address book type option. Otherwise , if the current machine is designated as a replica server skip the next two options. To add a "replica" server, Enter the replica server IP Address in "Replica Server Address" edit box. To make sure that only the master server can update the "replica" server, we do the following:

We protect the "replica" server with a password, and submit the password with "master" server.

Get the password of "replica" server (can be obtained by using the "View Server Password" item in configuration program) and specify it in the "Password" and "Confirm Password" fields.Press the "Add" button. From then on, any updates made on this machine will also be passed on to the added replica server.

12.8 Delete Replica Server

Rainmail Intranet Server can either maintain an independent global address book of all users entered in this server or be a replica of a "master" server maintained elsewhere in the enterprise. This section helps you remove a "replica" server from your enterprise. Once this is done, changes done to master server will not be propagated to this "replica" server.

To delete a "replica" server: choose the server from Choose the server from "Replica Server Address" combo box, and Press "Delete" button.From then on, any updates made on this machine will not be passed on to the deleted replica server.

12.9 View Server Password

To make sure that only authorized "master" servers update "replica" server, each "replica" server is protected with a password. When a "replica" server is added to "master" server, this password is given. Whenever an update is made to the "master" server, it uses the entered password to log in to a "replica" server and update its contents. Upon installation time, each "replica" server is given a random password. This section helps you find this password (which can be used to add this server as a "replica" to master server).

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