FortiMail units can be configured to consult an LDAP server for many things that you might otherwise normally have to configure on the FortiMail unit itself, such as user authentication, group membership, mail routing, and other features. Especially if you have a large amount of users and groups already defined on an LDAP directory, you may find it more convenient to query those existing definitions than to recreate the definition of those same users locally on the FortiMail unit. To accomplish this, you would configure an LDAP profile, then select that LDAP profile in other areas of the configuration that should use its LDAP queries.

LDAP profiles require compatible LDAP server directory schema and contents. Your LDAP server configuration may already be compatible. However, if your LDAP server configuration does not contain required information in a schema acceptable to LDAP profile queries, you may be required to modify either or both your LDAP profile and LDAP directory schema.