[Kroupware] Re: Custom UID and Kolab Future

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Thursday 26 June 2003 01:36, Donald Loflin wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> > On Tuesday 24 June 2003 18:00, Christopher Lewis wrote:
> > > Martin is basically saying that the full e-mail address is the UID
> > > now, and there are no plans to change this.
> >
> > The aim of the group of companies is to conclude the Kroupware-Project
> > first and continue to support the resulting Kolab-Server (probably
> > 1.0.x).
>
> If the aim is to fulfill the Kroupware contract goals, then why
> was email-as-UID introduced in the first place?  I remember
> reading that the contract did not require multiple/virtual domain
> support (or did I read it wrong..), therefore the UID could have
> been left as it was (or, the auto-generate code could have just
> used the first part, up to but not including the "@").

There is a complex interaction with email aliases and freebusy lists 
and we needed to accommodate email names with dots in them
as main email addresses.  Only the main email address with give you
the right freebusy list because the name is used to save this file.

Thus the server guys decided that switching to this different 
concept would solve that problem in a better and be a general
improvement, too.


> > Martin already stated that having the option of using a different UID
> > from the email will probably reintroduced, if there is good interest
> > to make the easier again.
>
> Add me to the list of those interested in, like Christopher Lewis,
> having custom or admin-settable UID's - mainly,

Yes, thanks for the feedback and interest.
As said you are all welcome to contribute to the further development
as coordinated on kolab-devel at .

> I object to any
> login name having an "@" in it, and I know my users will too.
> Chrisopher listed many of the reasons, but I'm also concerned that
> for some systems, the extra-long name or the "@" sign will just
> not work - ie not be an allowed character.  

True, like you cannot use this login name in an URL with login information,
because then you would have two @ signs in it. :)

> Another umm, "desire"
> (ie probably not possible anyway) is I want to "drop in" Kolab as
> a replacement for the current mail server, and not require my
> users to change any (or not many) settings in their client.

Yes, though it will require a team effort to polish possible migration paths.
The components used for the Kolab-Server come with a lot of 
power and flexibility. For a system administrator that can setup
up these components reasonably on her own, Kolab can already
be nicely customized. And in many cases there are special requirements
and you need to adapt your installation for it anyway.

>  And, I think using the email
> address as a login name (UID) will conflict with trying to expand
> Kolab into a Single Sign On server later (do you use your email
> address to log in via SSH?  I want my SSH login name and my IMAP
> login name and my fileserver login name, intranet, etc, etc to be
> the same).

I don't see a principal problem with these login containing
an "@" sign. It has the advantage that you are remined where you try
to log-on in the name it self. :)