Attributes for AD Users : mail
In the AD attribute mail, the SMTP email address of the user can be stored.
| LDAP name | |
| 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".