PH Directory Service Retired November 27, 2007

CIT retired the NIH Directory and Email Forwarding service, also known as "PH," on November 27, 2007. Other existing NIH services have assumed functions previously provided by PH. Thus, the official NIH Enterprise Directory (NED) has taken over PH directory features; the PH email forwarding capability was transferred to the NIH Central Email Service (CES); and the standard LDAP directory query protocol replaced the PH/CSO query protocol.

These changes will be transparent to most users, but some will need to reconfigure their email client to use LDAP rather than PH/CSO. If you are unsure how to do this, please ask the NIH Help Desk for assistance.

What changes will take place (specific services)

Email forwarding: Email addressed to existing @nih.gov addresses will continue to be delivered to the preferred email forwarding address with no interruption. All PH aliases, PH name and nickname combinations used in the last 12 months will be entered into the NIH Active Directory (AD). This allows PH-directed email to be forwarded to the current preferred forwarding address. Important note: Nicknames and forwarding addresses are no longer under user control, so users should contact the NIH Help Desk for assistance.

LDAP queries: PH LDAP queries to directory.nih.gov are now automatically redirected to the NIH Active Directory LDAP server and are transparent to users. See the following paragraph for details.

PH queries: Any email client (Eudora, for example) that used the CSO/PH protocol to query the PH Directory for email addresses needs to be reconfigured to use the LDAP protocol. Configure clients to use the NIH Active Directory LDAP server nihcesgal.nih.gov, using the LDAP standard port 389, and set the search base to ou=adam,dc=nih,dc=gov. Customers should contact the NIH Help Desk for assistance with this task.

PH alias: This unique identifier is no longer generated for new email accounts. In addition, all PH data currently available in the NIH Enterprise Directory (NED)—including, for example, the PH alias field in NED, NIHUNIQUEMAIL—will no longer be updated after November 27. If there are any services that use the PH alias, application owners or the service providers who rely on the PH alias or other PH data from NED need to update their application or service accordingly.

http://directory.nih.gov: Visitors to this Web address are now redirected to http://ned.nih.gov

Need help?

If you have any questions regarding the effects of the PH Directory Service retirement, please contact the NIH Help Desk at 301-496-4357 (301-496-HELP), TDD/TTY: 1-800-438-8832.