Customize LDAP autocompletion format in Thunderbird

Thunderbird can connect to an LDAP server and autocomplete email addresses as you type, but it needs some adjustment for some LDAP servers. One of the LDAP servers that I use regularly returns email addresses like this in the thunderbird interface:

username <firstname.lastname@domain.tld>

The email address looks fine, but I’d much rather have the person’s full name instead of the username. Here’s what I’m looking for:

Firstname Lastname <firstname.lastname@domain.tld>

In older Thunderbird versions, setting ldap_2.servers.SERVER_NAME.autoComplete.nameFormat to displayName was enough. However, this option isn’t used in recent versions of Thunderbird.

Digging in

After a fair amount of searching the Thunderbird source code with awk, I found a mention of DisplayName in nsAbLDAPAutoCompleteSearch.js that looked promising:

// Create a minimal map just for the display name and primary email.
      this._attributes =
        Components.classes["@mozilla.org/addressbook/ldap-attribute-map;1"]
                  .createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsIAbLDAPAttributeMap);
      this._attributes.setAttributeList("DisplayName",
        this._book.attributeMap.getAttributeList("DisplayName", {}), true);
      this._attributes.setAttributeList("PrimaryEmail",
        this._book.attributeMap.getAttributeList("PrimaryEmail", {}), true);
    }

Something is unusual here. The LDAP field is called displayName, but this attribute is called DisplayName (note the capitalization of the D). Just before that line, I see a lookup in an attributes map of some sort. There may be a configuration option that is called DisplayName.

In Thunderbird, I selected Edit > Preferences. I clicked the Advanced tab and then Config Editor. A quick search for DisplayName revealed an interesting configuration option:

ldap_2.servers.default.attrmap.DisplayName: cn,commonname

Fixing it

That’s the problem! This needs to map to displayName in my case, and not cn,commonname (which returns a user’s username). There are two different ways to fix this:

# Change it for just one LDAP server
ldap_2.servers.SERVER_NAME.attrmap.DisplayName: displayName
# Change it for all LDAP servers by default (careful)
ldap_2.servers.default.attrmap.DisplayName: displayName

After making the change, quit Thunderbird and relaunch it. Compose a new email and start typing in the email address field. The user’s first and last name should appear!