Binary package hint: kdepim
If I configure an LDAP resource with simple authentication, the only field to enter the binddn is the "Bind DN" field, which makes sense, only it doesn't seem to have any effect for simple authentication. In previous (3.x) versions of KDE, I counterintuitively had to enter the binddn in the "User" field for this to work. In Intrepid, that still seems to be necessary, only the User field is unavailable if you select simple authentication. To make it work I had to select SASL, copy the binddn into the (now available) User field, re-select Simple, and save. It took a lot of frustration before trying something as ridiculous as that. I wouldn't think this should be too hard to fix.
A little more information might help:
With the binddn in the "Bind DN" field, I could see in my openldap logs that the binddn used for the connection was "", i.e. none, and any attempt to write to the LDAP resource generated an error log on the server (but no indication of failure in Kontact) that modifications require authentication. The new contact (if that's what I was trying) would appear in the address book, even though the LDAP connection was the only configured resource and it failed. When I would restart Kontact, the new entry would be gone.
So I put the binddn in the User field, working around the UI to do so, and now it works just fine.
Version: kaddressbook 4.1 (using KDE 4.1.2)
OS: Linux
Installed from: Ubuntu Packages
While configuring KAddressbook to access a new company LDAP addressbook, I had problems configuring the authentication.
With Authentication:
In order to access the server addressbook, I had to go into the configfile by hand and set the "User" field to the correct value (same as Bind DN), at which point all the contacts appeared correctly.
I guess the "User" field shouldn't be disabled for Simple Authentication, unless I'm missing something.