Customizing the Default LDAP Attributes for Users

The Sun Java System Messenger Express server loads a default set of LDAP attributes for a user at the start of a session. These attributes are as follows:

cn

givenName

mail

mailAlternateAddress

mailAutoReplyMode

mailAutoReplySubject

mailAutoReplyText

mailAutoReplyTextInternal

mailAutoReplyTimeout

mailDeliveryOption

mailForwardingAddress

mailQuota,mailMsgQuota

preferredLanguage

sn

uid

vacationEndDate

vacationStartDate

For more information on the attributes required or allowed by LDAP object classes for Messenger Express, see Chapter 3 Attributes in the Sun Messaging and Collaboration Schema Reference Manual at:

http://docs.sun.com/db/prod/s1msgsrv#hic

You might want to obtain other customized LDAP attributes from the server. For example, an ISP might have a custom LDAP attribute assigned to all users called myuserclass. This attribute could denote different types of users that access services, including Sun Java System Messenger Express. Possible values for this attribute are “regular” and “vip”.

Before adding custom attributes to the directory, ensure that the directory schema supports these new attributes. The global set of schema for Directory Server can be found in the entry named cn=schema.

For more information on extending directory schema, see Sun Directory Server Deployment Guide at:

http://docs.sun.com/db/prod/s1dirsrv#hic

After extending the directory schema, you can add the new attribute to a User or a group entry. To add custom attribute to a User entry you will need to modify the entry in servletsconf section using the ldapmodify command. For more information on ldapmodify command, see Sun Directory Server Configuration, Command, and File Reference at:

http://docs.sun.com/db/prod/s1dirsrv#hic

Depending on the type of user (that is, the value of the myuserclass LDAP attribute), different advertisement are presented to the user when they log into Sun Java System Messenger Express (Sun Java System Messenger Express is customized to display banner advertisement). If the customized client has access to the myuserclass LDAP attribute, the type of user can be determined and the relevant banner advertisement for that user type is displayed.

To obtain other customized LDAP attributes from the server, use configutil to modify the service.http.extrauserldapattrs configuration parameter. The attributes are read-only by default. If the user wants to modify an attribute using the Sun Java System Messenger Express code, that attribute needs to be marked read-write by appending the suffix w.

The example below assumes the user wants to display banner advertisements depending on the class of the user and that the client program allows the user to edit a link to a home page:

configutil -l -o service.http.extrauserldapattrs -v “myuserclass,homepage:w “