[Evolution-hackers] GAL Distribution List Management?

[Henry Thorpe <thorpe lynxhub att com>]

I sent this a few weeks ago to the 'Connector' mailing list, but it 
didn't start a conversation...

I work in an organization where many people are very dependent on 
Exchange, and Distribution Lists stored in the GAL.

I refuse to install OutLook on my Windows 2000 laptop, and actually use 
a FreeBSD machine for much of my work.

OWA doesn't allow me to see the members of a GAL-based distribution 
list.  So, I tried using Evolution 2.0.4 with the ximian-connector to 
access Exchange.  This went smoothly, and during the install I noted 
that I needed the address of the Global Catalog server, and that it's 
pretty much an LDAP server.

Alas, Evolution with the Ximian connector doesn't provide a way (that I 
can determine) to iterate the members of a distribution list, and 
certainly no way to manage them.  However, I used Evolution with the 
Connector to do a few GAL searches, captured the network traffic with 
tcpdump, and was able to figure out the base dn, authentication dn, and 
filter for the various searches.

e.g., using OpenLDAP:

ldapsearch -hLDAPSERVER -p3268 -x -D'DOMAIN\USERID' -W 
"(&(mail=*)(!(msExchHideFromAddressLists=TRUE))(|(displayName=$1)(sn=$1)(givenName=$1)(mailNickname=$1)))"

where $1 is replaced by either "FIRSTNAME, LAST*", "SURNAME", 
"FIRSTNAME", or "EMAILHANDLE".
Then, based on that, I used the dn returned for a distribution list as 
the base dn of the ldap query, and discovered that the GC output 
includes all the dn's of the members of the list!  Thus, it should be 
possible for Evolution and the Exchange connector to at least display 
the members of an Exchange distribution list.

Here's an example of how to get a distribution list's info:

ldapsearch -hLDAPSERVER -p3268 -x -D'DOMAIN\USERID' -W -b 
"CN=$1,OU=Distribution Groups,DC=division,DC=company,DC=com"

where $1 is the distribution list name, e.g. 'dl-Employees'.   The 
'member' attributes contain the dn's of all the individual members of 
the list.  I grep the ^member: lines out of ldapsearch's output, and I 
pretty much know who's on the distribution list.  That solves my 
immediate problem.

The best way to figure out the various DC's for the base dn of the 
distribution list is to use the previous query on a user that is a 
member of the distribution list.

The output also includes the list owner, so Evolution/Connector should 
be able to know if the current user can modify the list, and should be 
able to provide a GUI path to do that.  I haven't yet tried, but I'll 
bet that LDAP modify/update commands will allow the authenticated user 
to modify lists that they own.

So, how do I suggest/request a feature that allows distribution list 
iteration, and possibly modification?

Can this be done only with modifications for the Exchange Connector, 
or will it require changes in the Addressbook code, as well?

				TIA