Every Mac by default has an application called Contacts. macOS Server 5.2, running on Sierra, has a service called Contacts. While the names might imply very different things that they do, you’ll be super-surprised that the two are designed to work with one another. The Contacts service is based on CardDAV, a protocol for storing contact information on the web, retrievable and digestible by client computers. However, there is a layer of database-driven obfuscation between the Contacts service and CardDAV. The Contacts service is also a conduit with which to read information from LDAP and display that information in the Contacts client, which is in a way similar to how the Global Address List (GAL) works in Microsoft Exchange.
I know I’ve said this about other services in macOS Server, but the Contacts service couldn’t be easier to configure. First, you should be running Open Directory and you should also have configured Apple Push Notifications. To setup Push Notifications, have an Apple ID handy and click on the Contacts entry in the SERVICES section of Server app.
Click the Edit Notifications button to configure the Apple Push Notification settings for the computer. When prompted, click on Enable Notifications.
If prompted, provide the username and password for the Apple ID and then click on Finish.
To enable the Contacts service, open the Server app and then click on Contacts in the SERVICES section of the List Pane. From here, use the “Include directory contacts in search” checkbox to publish LDAP contacts through the service, or leave this option unchecked and click on the ON button to enable the service.
The Contacts service then starts and once complete, a green light appears beside the Contacts entry in the List Pane. To configure a client open the Contacts application on a client computer and use the Preferences entry in the Contacts menu to bring up the Preferences screen. From here, click the Accounts menu and then click on Add Accounts.
At the Add Account screen, scroll down and click Add Other Account… to bring up an expanded menu of account types.
Click “CardDAV account”.
At the “Add a Contacts Account” screen, enter the email address and password of the user. Auto discovery doesn’t always work, so you might end up using the manual button to add the account using the server’s address. Alternatively, if you’ve mapped CardDAV to custom ports, you may use the advanced option to have paths and ports available.
When the account is finished creating, you can click on the account again to see the settings used. Otherwise, close the Preferences/Accounts screen and then view the list of Contacts. Click on View and then Show Groups. This will show you the name of the servers that you’re connected to in the sidebar. There won’t be any contacts yet, so click on the plus sign to verify you have write access to the server.
Next, let’s get access to the LDAP-based contacts. To do so, bring up the Add Account screen again and this time select LDAP Account from the Account Type field.
Provide the name or IP address of the server and then the port that LDAP contacts are available over (the defaults, 389 and 636 with SSL are more than likely the settings that you’ll use. Then click on the Continue button.
At the Account Settings screen, provide the name that will appear in the Contacts app for the account in the Description field and then enter the search base in the Search base field. To determine the search base, use the serveradmin command. The following command will output the search base:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin settings dirserv:LDAPSettings:LDAPSearchBase
Then set Authentication to simple and provide the username and password to access the server for the account you are configuring. The list then appears.
The default port for the Contacts service is 8443, as seen earlier in the configuration of the client. To customize the port, use the serveradmin command to set addressbook settings for BindSSLPorts to edit the initial array entry, as follows:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin settings addressbook:SSLPort = 8443
The default location for the files used by the Contacts service is in the /Library/Server/Calendar and Contacts directory. To change that to a folder called /Volumes/Pegasys/CardDAV, use the following command:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin settings addressbook:ServerRoot = "/Volumes/Pegasys/CardDAV"
When changing the ServerRoot, you’ll likely need to change the DataRoot, which is usually the Data directory immediately underneath the ServerRoot. To do so, run serveradmin and put the DataRoot entry under the addressbook settings:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin settings addressbook:DataRoot = "/Volumes/Pegasys/CardDAV/Data"
The service is then stopped with the serveradmin command:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin stop addressbook
And started with the serveradmin command:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin start addressbook
And whether the service is running, along with the paths to the logs can be obtained using the fullstatus command with serveradmin:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin fullstatus addressbook
The output of which should be as follows:
status addressbook
addressbook:state = “RUNNING”
addressbook:setStateVersion = 1
addressbook:readWriteSettingsVersion = 1
If you’re easily amused, run the serveradmin settings for calendar and compare them to the serveradmin settings for addressbook:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin settings calendar
By default, the Contacts server allows basic authentication. We’ll just turn that off real quick:
sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin settings addressbook:Authentication:Basic:Enabled = no
And then let’s see what it is in addressbook:
/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin settings addressbook:Authentication:Basic:Enabled
