Information Systems:IBM/Lotus Notes and Domino

Overview

IBM Domino is the server software that is paired with IBM Notes, which is the client software. Domino is a collaborative email calendaring address booking platform that can also act as a database, application or web server. uniPHARM only uses the email, calendar, address book, iNotes webmail and Traveler functions. Support is provided by IBM and the yearly renewal is during the month of May.

How-tos

Restore deleted email messages from a user's mail file in Lotus Notes.

Example: A user (Joe Shmoe) opens Lotus Notes and deletes some or all of their email messages from the inbox or a different folder.

• Get the backup tape(s) that contains the last backup of the user's NSF file.
• The user needs to identify the date when the data was deleted. Then use the tape dated one day prior to this date.
• Load the tape(s) into the autoloader.
• Sheila needs to restore the NSF file from the tape, back into the IFS of the Power8.
• Sheila needs to know the path of the file - it should be something like: /root/domino/maggie/data/mail/joeshmoe.nsf
• That file needs to be copied from the tape to some sort of temp folder on the IFS

DO NOT RESTORE DIRECTLY INTO THE DOMINO DIRECTORY

• Open the Domino Administrator program on Darren's or Norwin's computer
• File -> Open Database -> BROWSE to the restored NSF file on the temp IFS folder
• Copy the deleted email messages with Ctrl-C
• Use the Domino Administrator to open the users email file that is in the "mail" folder - this should be the mail file with the missing data
• Now paste the messages into whatever folder the user needs them to be in
• Now we go the the server console in the Domino Administrator program and issue the following commands - substitute the example name with the actual user's name
• Enter in the following order, remember case matters and wait for the console to tell you that the command was finished before entering the next one.
• dbcache flush
• load fixup -F mail/joeshmoe.nsf
• load updall -R mail/joeshmoe.nsf
• load updall -C mail/joeshmoe.nsf
• load updall -X mail/joeshmoe.nsf
• load compact -c -D -i K mail/joeshmoe.nsf

• Now the user can log into Lotus Notes and continue using it with their restored email messages.

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Clean up everyone's mail file - all users must be logged off. Don`t do this unless you absolutely have to.

• dbcache flush
• load fixup -F -N Mail
• load updall -R Mail
• load updall -C Mail
• load updall -X Mail
• load compact -c -D -i -K Mail

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Repair the shared calendar and or the Rooms and Resources database in Domino. Don`t do this unless you absolutely have to.

• tell sched q
• tell CalConn q
• tell RnRMgr q
• dbcache flush
• load fixup -F reservations.nsf
• load updall -R reservations.nsf
• load updall -C reservations.nsf
• load updall -X reservations.nsf
• load compact -c reservations.nsf
• load sched
• load CalConn
• load RnRMgr

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Create A New Lotus Notes User

1. Go to \\superserver\tech\common\domino\registrations
2. Copy any text file with a person’s name into a new text file with the new person’s name
3. Open the new text file and replace the existing names and addresses with those for the new person – the semi colons represent empty fields so don’t mess them up
4. Save that new text file
5. Open the Domino Administrator program
6. Make sure you are looking at the “People And Groups” tab
7. On the top right side of the window expand the “Tools” button
8. Expand the “People” button that appears below the Tools button
9. Click on “Register”
10. The password is ashes ( Stephen Aberle made that password )
11. Click the “Import Text File” button and navigate to the saved text file in step 4
12. Put a checkmark in the Advanced option on the left side of the Registration window
13. Click the Password Options button and make sure that there is a checkmark next to “Set Internet Password”
14. Don’t change the slider for password quality unless there is a tiny bomb icon next to the person’s name in the table
15. Click OK on the Password Options window
16. Make sure there is a checkmark for “Enable roaming for this person” and for “Create a Notes ID for this person”
17. Make sure that the correct first and last name are displayed
18. The “Explicit policy” should be none available
19. Click on the Mail tab on the left side of the Registration window
20. The mail file template needs to be “Mail (R9)”
21. The Mail file owner access needs to be changed to Manager
22. The quota and quota warning amounts can be changed IF needed otherwise leave at the default numbers
23. Click the green checkmark after each setting change
24. Click on the ID Info tab on the left side of the Registration window
25. Make sure that there is a checkmark for “In Domino Directory” and for “In File”
26. Make sure that the path for saving the ID file on the Superserver is valid ( it is by default )
27. Click on the Groups tab on the left side of the Registration window and make sure that the new person is assigned the correct groups
28. Click the green checkmark to save those changes
29. Repeat steps 13 to 28 if there are multiple people in the imported text file from step 11
30. Click the Register All button and wait for the process to finish
31. Click OK and then DONE when the process is finished

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Set up Lotus Notes

• Install Lotus Notes on computer in multi-user mode IT Dept completes this step
• Log into Windows using the persons profile, example joes ( Joe Shmoe) and the assigned password
• Double-click on the Lotus Notes icon on the desktop
• On the first grey window that appears, click the "Next" button
• In the top white field, type in your full name, example Joseph Shmoe John Doe Jane Smith
• In the bottom white field, type in the following exactly Maggie/UPH
• Make sure that there is a checkmark next to "I want to connect to a Domino server"
• Click the "Next" button
• Make sure that "Maggie/UPH" is in the top white field
• The pull down menu that says "Select a network type" click the down arrow and then click on TCP/IP or Online
• In the bottom white field type in the following exactly maggie.unipharm.local
• Type in your Lotus Notes password and allow the program to download your email from the server
• A small box should appear with prompting you to pick a location, always click on "Office" and then click OK
• The program will then show one more small box letting you know that Lotus Notes setup is complete, click OK

Overnight Maintenance Conducted Within Domino

Domino has internal programs that it runs either automatically or on a schedule to maintain files for users. The Catalog program runs at 12:10AM each night for 3 minutes and this keeps track of where all database files are located within the Domino server. The Compact program runs at 12:30AM each night for about 20-25 minutes and only recovers empty space within mail files, it does not compress them because that would take a lot longer than 25 minutes. The Statlog program runs at 1:40AM each night for 1 minute and updates usage statistics for all databases within Domino. The Updall program runs at 1:50AM each night and rebuilds the indexes for all non-mail-related databases which takes about 10 minutes. The Domino server is then commanded to do a graceful shutdown at 3AM for backups, and then commanded to restart at 5:10AM. When the Domino server does restart, the Fixup program is run and that rebuilds all the indexes of mail related files which takes up 10 minutes.

The OMS Agent (TELL AMGR RUN "OMSMAIL.NSF" 'OMS3-4') runs every 7 minutes from the time the Domino server starts to when it shuts down. This agent program takes OMS data and creates an email from it to be sent outbound. The emails are usually order confirmations but do include item catalogues and other weird documents.

Give User The Ability To Email All Shareholders

1. Open the Domino Administrator client
2. Click on the Configuration tab
3. Expand "Server" on the left pane and click on "Configurations"
4. Double click "*-[All Servers]"
5. Navigate to "Router/SMTP" tab and then the "Restrictions And Controls" tab and then the "Rules" tab
6. Click the "Edit Server Configuration" button at the top
7. Select the rule you want to edit and then click the "Edit Rule" button
8. When adding a user, you MUST put a dot for "Exception" and the parameters MUST be OR SENDER IS
9. When removing a user from this permissions list, scroll down in the top box, click on their name and then click "Remove". May God have mercy on your soul if you click Remove all.

The above process is used to set who is allowed to send an email from Lotus Notes to the BC or AB Shareholders list as well as the Medicine Centre list that is in the company directory in Notes. We only allow certain managers and Customer Service to send an email to those lists as a way to cut down on silly people from doing something dumb. When there are staffing changes in CS or in management, then this process is needed to make changes to the list of users in each rule.

Certificate ID Or ID File Has Expired

Domino uses ID files as part of the authentication of users access the Domino server. The ID files represent the private key and match up with the Server Certificate ID which represents the public key. Please do not confuse this with SSL certificates because while the concepts are the same, the use of ID files within Domino is not the same as SSL. The server ID file and all the user ID files are stored within the Domino directory AND on the Superserver in \tech\common\domino. The server ID file has an expiration date of 2100. When a user is created, Domino generates a new ID file for them and saves the ID file to the directory and the Superserver. The expiry dates on the user ID files is usually only about 2 years into the future. Domino does this as a forced method to verify humans still need access to the server. For people that understand security, this is great. For normal humans, this is annoying and a complicated process to get recertified every 2 years. For this reason, all user ID files have an expiry date of 31/12/2099 11:59:59 PM. It is important when creating new staff that we remember to set the expiry date on their ID file to match the rest.

If a newish staff member cannot access Notes and has an error "Your ID file has expired" then use the Domino Administrator client to recertify that ID file to have a new expiry date of 2099. Select the user in the Admin client and click "Recertify" on right side. You will need the UPH Certificate ID password which is ashes and you will need the password of the user which should still be in the text file on the Superserver Tech folder that was used to originally create them.

SSL Certificates For iNotes And Traveler

The Domino server, besides doing email, also hosts 2 different websites. The first is called iNotes and is a webified version of the Notes client in the same way that Hotmail is a web version of Outlook. The iNotes site is open to the public internet and does use https with a real certificate from a CA. This is good. The other website is Traveler and its serves as the ActiveSync pass through between Domino and the Verse app that can access Domino email on a smartphone. Traveler is also open to the public internet and uses https with a real certificate from a CA. Again, this is good. The brutally ugly part is trying to renew either of those certificates because they do expire every three years. Domino has NO graceful way to generate a renewal request and even when you do go through the process, getting the renewed CA certificate back in is a very painful process. So what are the details? Honestly, the best answer is to call IBM and play dumb. Create a support ticket at severity 2 and say that you need help renewing an iNotes or Traveler SSL certificate. The first level support people at IBM/HCL do have the documentation and they will walk you through it step by step because its just simply so ugly that they don't expect anyone to just know how to do this. They will tell you what to download and where to go and what commands to run because its so counter intuitive. Block off an entire day to renew one certificate. No, I am not joking, embrace the suck.

IBM Traveler and Verse

Traveler is a component of Domino server allowing users to access their mail/calendar/To-do on mobile devies. Verse is the name of the iOS/Android app that allows you to connect to Traveler.

Connecting new staff member to Verse

• Install Verse on client device.
• The user will need 3 pieces of information:

Server: nts.unipharm.com
Username: Their username in the format john doe (not johnd) or their email address
Password: Their Notes password, which should be the same as their Windows/green-screen password

• Upon registration, a message will appear indicating that the user is "blocked". This is normal. IT will receive an email indiciating that a new user is trying to connect.
• Click the link