CardDav and iPhone

[pere]

I am today using an LDAP-server to sync contacts with my iPhone. It does not give me all the functionality I am looking for. I am thinking about setting up a contacts server using CardDav, but I am not sure if it will really solve my problem:

Does the iPhone automatically look up contacts from the synced CardDav-server? Does it behave like my contacts were synced from iTunes? Ie, if I have added "Tom Jones - 333 333 333", does it a) display Tom Jones if 333 333 333 is calling me?

 

[Darwin]

Does it behave like my contacts were synced from iTunes? Ie, if I have added "Tom Jones - 333 333 333", does it a) display Tom Jones if 333 333 333 is calling me?

Yes its like syncing from iTunes with the addition that any updates made to the contacts will be synced over the air.

 

[pere]

Thanks Darwin.

I decided to try this out. I downloaded and installed the Calendar Server. This seems to work.

However I am unable to locate the sources for the Contact Server. I found a couple of indications that these two servers are now merged. I was hoping the Contact Server was included in the latest CalendarServer sources, but this does not seem to be the case.

Any ideas?

 

[Darwin]

Thanks Darwin.

I decided to try this out. I downloaded and installed the Calendar Server. This seems to work.

However I am unable to locate the sources for the Contact Server. I found a couple of indications that these two servers are now merged. I was hoping the Contact Server was included in the latest CalendarServer sources, but this does not seem to be the case.

Any ideas?

What sort of setup are you working with? I mean in terms of the server's OS etc. That would help me figure out what your seeing.

If the Calendar Server is using CalDAV then I could certainly understand about that merger. After all, WebDAV, CalDAV and CardDAV are pretty much similar in terms of how they distribute data.

 

[pere]

I am using Calendar Server 2.3.

I am referring the following site for the Calendar and Contacts server: http://trac.calendarserver.org/

For setting up the Calendar Server I pretty much followed the instruction on this page:
http://www.ronregev.com/misc/pim_server_tutorial/

However, I was unable to use this instruction for setting up the Contacts Server, as it no longer exists on the address it is referring to. I looked around, but was unable to locate a copy. The article at rongrev.com hints at a possible merger between the two code-bases, and I found a forum post saying they already were merged (do not know how reliable, as I cant find any info about this elsewhere).

 

[etchtech09]

You are correct in your reading that the two servers have merged. I used the software for most of last year until I bought a Mac Mini Server.

It can be sort of a pain to setup IMO. Once you get it working, though, it functions very well. As I recall, and I can confirm this later today if needed, that the users you setup for the CalDAV server will be used for the CardDAV; all you need to do is turn it on in the config file (should be the same config file that you modified as part of the setup for CalDAV)

 

[etchtech09]

I found this key [<key>EnableCardDAV</key>] near the beginning of my caldavd.conf file. If you have a functioning CalDAV server then I don't think you need to do anything more than just put [<true/>] after the key and then do a [run -k] and [run -nd] to skip setup and run as a daemon (in the background).

Good Luck!

 

[pere]

Worked perfectly! Thanks a lot.

 

[pere]

The server seems to function OK for normal private address books, but I have not found any documentation about how to customize it.

My intended use was to store a large number of company addresses, and give multiple users/devices read access with a common username/password.

Now I am struggling to figure out where the addresses are stored, and how they can be batch edited. I am also having some problems finding the correct way of giving multiple devices the same username/password and restricting this to read only.

I have a feeling that what I am really missing here is the documentation. Is this kind of documentation available?

 

[etchtech09]

I actually found that it didn't do exactly what I wanted either, so I bought a Mac Mini Server to fill the role. Which it has perfectly. However, in your case, it sounds like you may want to see if you can contact the developers of the Calendar and Contact Server software to see if they can give you direction. Since theirs is a project that is always being worked on, I don't think they have put much time into extensive documentation.

I wish I could help you more, but I was lucky to get it working myself.