What is an LDAP address book?

LDAP stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol and is the central address book for email clients and other devices, such as printers.
Once the central RWTH LDAP address book has been integrated, all RWTH email addresses for which the Visible in the global address list option is enabled can be viewed and used to select recipients.

Access is only possible from the RWTH network.
 

How can the LDAP address book be used?

You can configure and use an LDAP address book as an additional address book in Outlook or Thunderbird.

The LDAP address book allows you to search for people outside your email domain, whereas the existing address books in Outlook or Thunderbird only contain people who have an email address within your email domain. 
 

What types of LDAP address books can be used?

You can use three different LDAP address books at RWTH:

• Simple LDAP address book
• RWTH LDAP address book for user certificates
• DFN LDAP address book

If you would like to contact someone from another RWTH institution, you can use the simple LDAP address book. This address book contains all entries available in RWTHcontacts.

The following settings are required for this address book:

• Server: ldappv.rwth-aachen.de
• Port: 636
• SSL: enabled
• Search base: ou=People,dc=rwth-aachen,dc=de.

If you would like to send an encrypted email to someone without having previously exchanged public RSA keys with that person, you can use the RWTH LDAP address book or the DFN LDAP address book. In addition to contact information, these address books contain information about public-key certificates, which enable encrypted email communication.

You can find the settings for these LDAP address books under LDAP for user certificates from the RA Portal.