I've been thinking recently about the fact that I have 4 separate address books on my computers, all managed by Evolution. My laptop has one, my home desktop has one, my work desktop has one, and we have started configuring an LDAP server at work too. Obviously none of these are synced and this is a right mess.

So, why can't I run a personal LDAP server? I was thinking about a minimal LDAP implementation (just enough to keep Evolution happy) which writes Maildir-style to many files, meaning Unison can be used to sync any changes. Or write a new backend for OpenLDAP which writes multiple files instead of this posh bdb business. Or use OpenLDAP with the default backend and use the LDAP Sync protocol, which may or may not do what I want.

Of course this hits problems -- an LDAP server needs to open a port, so what port does it open if it is started by a user, and what happens if multiple people login on the same machine. SLP or D-Bus could be used to find the LDAP server, but this is getting rapidly too complicated.

I know Havoc was wondering about LDAP for every user, and I've heard rumours that MacOS X comes configured with a bit of the LDAP server for every user. If anyone knows of answers to my problems, please contact me.

NP: From the Choirgirl Hotel, by Tori Amos (very loudly).

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