LDAP Setup Instructions

Fastmail allows you to have LDAP access to your Address Book. The server details for LDAP access are as follows:

  • Server: ldap.messagingengine.com
  • Port: 389 (or 636 for SSL)
  • Login: Required (but must be "PLAIN", not "SPA")
  • Username/Bind DN: cn=[your-username]@[your-domain],dc=User
  • Password: your FastMail.FM password
  • Search base/Base DN: dc=AddressBook

In the above, make sure you replace [your-username]@[your-domain] with your FastMail.FM username/login name/email address (must include @fastmail.fm part), and remove the [ and ] brackets as well, they're just to make it clearer which bits need some changing, but remember the "cn=" part at the start and the ",dc=User" part on the end.

Also note that the values are case sensitive. It must be exactly ",dc=User" on the end of the username part, and the search base must be exactly "dc=AddressBook" (capital A and capital B, all rest lower case).

LDAP notes

  • The address book is read-only via LDAP, so you can't make changes or add addresses to your address book from your email program
  • The address book is not cached offline (in theory Thunderbird 2 supports this, but the implementation is currently broken, it should be fixed in Thunderbird 3), so it will only work while you are connected to the internet
  • Some items with an invalid format may not appear in LDAP. For instance, LDAP defines the format of fax-numbers, and they can't contain an "@" in them. So if you setup a fax number in the FastMail.FM addressbook that's actual an email type fax service (eg. efax), then that won't appear in the LDAP response because it's not a valid fax number in LDAP format. In this particular case, the simple work around is to set it as an email address instead, but not all cases are as easy to work around.

LDAP is most useful for families/businesses that have a large global address book. In these cases, the LDAP address lookup will search the users private address book and the global address book.

If you understand these limitations, and want to give LDAP a go, here are some quick instructions for setting up LDAP on the most popular email clients:

Outlook Express

  1. Go to Tools -> Accounts

  2. Click Add -> Directory Service

  3. Enter the LDAP server details referring to the server settings mentioned above

    Here are some screenshots showing the setup

Thunderbird

  1. Go to Tools -> Options

  2. Choose Composition -> Addressing

  3. Click on "Edit Directories"

  4. Click on "Add"

  5. Enter the LDAP server details referring to the server settings mentioned above

    Here is a screenshot showing the setup

iPhone/iPad

  1. Go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars

  2. Click on "Add Account.."

  3. Choose "Other"

  4. Click on "Add LDAP Account"

  5. Enter the LDAP server details referring to the server settings mentioned above

    Here is a sample screenshot

  6. Choose "Save"

  7. Click on "Continue" when the SSL error pops up (unfortunately iOS has a long standing bug that means SSL connections for LDAP don't work)

  8. Click on field that shows "People"

  9. Make changes as shown in this screenshot

  10. "Save" changes

Outlook

  1. Go to Tools -> Account Settings

  2. Click on Addressbooks

  3. Click on "New"

  4. Enter the LDAP server details referring to the server settings mentioned above