To be honest, i'm not experienced enough in Linux to know what the problem is. If you believe it is a bug, please do file a bug notice:
I am running:
openldap-2.0.27-2.7.3es
openldap-clients-2.0.27-2.7.3es
php-ldap-4.3.9-3ld
perl-perl-ldap-0.22-10
openldap-servers-2.0.27-2.7.3es
e-smith-ldap-4.10.0-03
For the record, it seems to be an issue with remote access to SME's LDAP info. Since you can obtain ldap info for sending emails from within IMP Webmail installed on local server.
Also, when i was refering to authenticating against the ldap server, i was talking about website authentication, with php to be precise.
Let me know what you think.
Tristan