218909 - cannot access LDAP address server via socks, although mail-retrieving through socks works

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: LDAP Integration, defect)

Description

[Tom Verbeek]

User-Agent:       Lynx/2.8.4rel.1 libwww-FM/2.14 SSL-MM/1.4.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6c
Build Identifier: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.2 (20030901)

I am using Mozilla Thunderbird as my mail client behind a firewall that does not allow direct outgoing internet access. Therefore I am using a socks-server to tunnel traffic to the internet. This works perfectly if I enter the socks server in Thunderbird's advanced options for retrieving and sending mail. BUT: I cannot access my external LDAP server to lookup addresses. It seems that an address book that is connected to an LDAP server does not take the socks setting into an account. Currently I use this workaround: I disable the use of socks within Thunderbird and instead socksify the complete application with Permeos 'SocksCap'. Then I can also access my external LDAP server. I have not tested this bug with Mozilla 1.4 or 1.5.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Work in a environment without direct internet access
2.enter a socks server in the advanced settings
3.try to use an external LDAP server for address lookup
Actual Results:  
nothing - no response from the LDAP server

Expected Results:  
Use the socks settings also for LDAP address retrieval

Comment 1

[Tom Verbeek]

Is this bug *ever* going to be fixed? Can't be that difficult, can it?

Comment 2

[Doug Wright]

-> Core:MailNews:LDAP Integration

Comment 3

[Tom Verbeek]

Now Thunderbird 1.02 is out and this bug is not fixed yet :(
There are people that are using Thunderbird in a corporate environment and would
like to access LDAP address books that are outside the  company network, thus
can only be accessed via proxy...

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

cc'ing Dan and Darin. I thought the socks stuff was transparent to the protocol
code.

Comment 5

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

For Necko clients, it is.  But the LDAP XPCOM code uses the C SDK for networking
instead of Necko.  I suspect the only way this is likely to get fixed is if at
some point the LDAP C SDK gets SOCKS support.  Perhaps mcs can speak to whether
that's likely to happen...

Comment 6

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

I/O is pluggable (via callback functions Thunderbird could install).  That would
probably be the way to Sock-ify LDAP.  I don't know enough about Necko to know
how much work this would be.

Comment 7

[Tom Verbeek]

Argh.. 1.05 is out and this bug is still present.. I really need external LDAP
access over socks..
Can someone point me to the code so I can try my luck please?

Comment 8

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

In looking at the directory/xpcom code, it looks to me like the code in
nsLDAPSecurityGlue.cpp does a lot of what would need to be done to support socks
(it "overrides" some of the libldap TCP I/O functions to make SSL work).  I
wonder if socks works with LDAP if you use a secure (SSL) connection today?


http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/directory/xpcom/base/src/nsLDAPSecurityGlue.cpp

Comment 9

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

*** Bug 311196 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[Stefan Stonjek]

I can confirme that this bug still exists with the current version of Thunderbird (1.0.7 Linux and Windows).

The nsLDAPSecurityGlue.cpp file mentioned above seems to handle the SSL'ed version of the LDAP protocol, not the usage of SOCKS.

I would be nice if someone could fix the box. I could help testing. 

Comment 11

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

Comment 13

[Torsten Bronger]

I confirm this bug with TB 2.0.0.6 on Linux.

Comment 14

[Anand Buddhdev]

I'm using Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 on Mac OS X, and I also confirm that this bug is still present. I can access the mail servers via a SOCKS proxy, but not the corporate LDAP address book :(

Could someone please take this up and try to do something about it? It's quite an annoyance not to be able to access the address book.

Comment 15

[Joel Goguen]

This has been reported against Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 at https://launchpad.net/bugs/243578.

Comment 17

[Erwan MAS]

I confirm the bug with TB 3.1.6

Comment 18

[Anand Buddhdev]

I'm now on TB 3.1.9 (OS X) and this bug is still bothering me. Could someone please, please fix this?

Comment 19

[Mikhail T.]

Still a problem with Thunderbird-5.0... For example, when I ask to download the contact list from the LDAP server, I get "Replication failed" message INSTANTLY -- Address Book is not even attempting to connect...

Sending and reading e-mails works fine.

The age of this bug-report is really shameful, I might add...

Comment 20

[Stéphane Chazelas]

I can reproduce with Thunderbird 78.8.0 on Debian.

IMAP, IMAPS, SMTPS connections go via the configured SOCKS5 proxy, but LDAPS connections are not proxied.