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Attributes for AD Users : mail


In the AD attribute mail, the SMTP email address of the user can be stored.


mail


LDAP name mail
Data type String (max 256)
Multivalue (Array) No
System Flags

0x10

Search Flags 0x01
In Global Catalog? Yes
Attribute ID 0.9.2342.19200300.100.1.3
AD DB attribute name E-Mail-Addresses
ADSI datatype 3 - String(Unicode)
LDAP syntax 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.15 - Directory String
Used in ... > W2K
Schema Info Microsoft - MSDN

This field isn't used directly from the Active Directory system for any technical function. Needless to say that it is indeed an important info attribute when a mail system is in place and this information is provided to other users in global address lists or stuff like that. This is the reason for having the mail attribute in the global catalog by default.


For users with an Exchange mailbox the real recipient addresses for email are stored in the multivalue attribute proxyAddresses. When proxyAddresses is changed manually with admin tools or by a recipient policy, the systems sets automatically the the value of attribute mail to the primary SMTP address.This is not the case when you set the attribut by script or with programming technics - therefor in Exchange environments the following rule is valid:

The attributes "mail" and "proyAddresses" are to be set together. The value of "mail" has to be the primary SMTP address from "proxyAddresses".