How to Set Up Address Book Server on Lion

By John Rizzo from Mac OS X Lion Server For Dummies

With Address Book Server in Lion Server, users on your network can share contacts across the network. To start Address Book Server, launch the Server app in Lion Server. Click the Address Book icon and then click the big switch to the On position.

To see all Address Book’s settings using the command line, open the Terminal utility and type the following:

sudo serveradmin settings addressbook

If you’re familiar with configuring with Unix commands, you can change most of these settings by adding a colon followed by the setting, and then the configuration value. For example, to set the SSL port number to 8443, type this:

sudo serveradmin settings addressbook:SSLPort = 8443

One thing you can’t change with the command line is the location of the data store.

Enable user access on Lion Address Book Server

You can enable or disable all users or specific users from having access to Address Book Server. In the Server app, click Users in the sidebar. Click a username or select multiple users by cmd-clicking. Now click the gear icon and select Edit Access to Services. In the Server Access dialog that appears, you can select (or deselect) Address Book and other services.

Enable Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security

You can turn on SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) data encryption for Address Book and other services by specifying a digital certificate to use. Always using SSL with Address Book to protect sensitive contact data.

Here’s how to turn on SSL:

1. In the Server app, click the name of your server under Hardware in the left column.
Click the Settings tab.
Click the Edit button next to SSL Certificate.
To turn on SSL for all services, click the Certificate pop-up menu and select a certificate, or select None to turn off SSL for all services.
To turn on SSL specifically for Address Book Server, click the arrows next to iCal and Address Book and select a certificate.

Lion Server comes with a self-assigned SSL certificate that you use for secure services. If you don’t see a certificate, open the Next Steps panel at the bottom of the Server application, click the Review Certificates button, and follow the directions. You can use a certificate obtained from a third-party certificate authority or your company’s own certificate authority.

Enable push notification in Address Book Server

You can enable push notification to let Lion Server notify Macs and iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads of changes to data in the network Address Book. Push notification works for clients running Mac OS X 10.6 and later and iOS 3.0 and later. Push notification uses security certificates from Apple, which you can obtain with the Server app.

To turn on push notifications, open the Server application and select your server under Hardware in the left column. Click the Settings tab and then click the check box next to Enable Apple Push Notifications. Click the Edit button to the right.

Next, a dialog called Apple Push Notification Service Certificate appears, asking you for an Apple ID and password. You can type the ID you use for your iTunes account, though Apple recommends that you create a new Apple ID for your organization. You can follow the instructions in this dialog to create a new Apple ID, if you need it.

If you already have an Apple ID, type it and click Get Certificate. If you already have a certificate from Apple, you can also renew it here.