Exchange global address list (GAL) access from unix

What are the ways of accessing exchange global address list(GAL) and doing some operation on them (like finding manager of a contact, etc.) in unix? This can be done in pretty straightforward way in VBA Outlook App in windows. I am trying to find out a way of doing that in unix environment.

As long as LDAP is accessible on your exchange server, you can use that. Here is a small script I wrote to do just that, showing the ldapseach command it uses internally:

$ 411 -d -e joe.user
   command is "/usr/bin/ldapsearch -y ${HOME}/.ssh/temp -x -b dc=ACME,dc=com -H ldap://app.corp.company.com:3268 '(mail=joe.user@*)'"
                Joe User    555 329 3485 joe.user@acme.com,  NY

A few comments:

• at prior companies, you could do an unauthenticated bind. That was easier.
• you can see I store my password in my .ssh directory temporarily. this is bad in theory
• you can probably use any LDAP client. I wanted a simple script with no dependencies, so I parse ldapsearch output