Domino Thoughts

Admittedly, this is an issue that is a fringe, but thought I'd post it just in case.

Yesterday, I was working to configure a client's server to use mail journaling.  Everything was going smooth until I went to edit a server configuration document to add the mail rule for a couple of servers.  The Rules tab was missing.  I was on the Admin client, so I tried it from the Notes client and the tab showed up.  So I finished the configuration and went searching for the cause.  I mean, wouldn't you want to administrator the server configurations from the Admin client??

Looking around, I quickly found a technote on this issue that appears to be a throwback to the "old" days of 6.5.4/7.0.  Something in the design of the Domino directory changed and a field got left behind that causes this issue.  This explains why I only saw this issue on some of the older servers and not the newer ones.

A quick agent to delete the field from the document (it's in the technote) and I can now manage the server configurations from the Admin client.

Next week at Lotusphere, GBS will be hosting a gathering of a few of our admin experts to give some quick tips and also have time to ask questions and discuss your issues.  David Brown, Chris Whisonant and myself will be leading the discussions. The session will take place on Monday, January 16 at 1pm.  Please use the link below to register.  

This is a "private" event in our hospitality suite, so we need to know how many will be attending.  

Ask the Experts
Admins of the Round Table  
Monday 1pm - 2pm
We've gathered a collection of Expert Administrators to talk about Implementing Managed Replicas, User Communication, and Using HAProxy as well as tips and tricks for administering Domino, Sametime, Connections and more.

Space for this session is limited so register today to reserve your seat.  

I hope to see you there or stop by the pedestals and say "Hi!"

Please join me next week for a GROUP Talk webcast on "Two Minute Drills for Administrators" where I'll reprise my presentation from this year's PACLUG event. The event will be at 11am EDT on September 7.

This webcast will give you some tools to manage and maintain servers and users by teaching you easy, two-minute drills to implement in your office! Discussions will focus on Notes/Domino, Quickr, Sametime, and even Connections! By taking these "two-minute drills" back to your office, you will experience easier management and increased efficiency.

Hope to "see" you there!

Thanks to all who came to the session. As promised, here's the take-home stuff from the session.  

If you have a BES in the US, you're going to want to check your SRP configuration on the BES to make sure it will still work properly after May 28.  RIM is changing some IP addresses that will affect your users.

First off, check the BES configuration and make sure that the Blackberry Router configuration is pointing to us.srp.blackberry.com and not another host name.  Next, run the SRP test and make sure that you see that a successful connection is made to the following new IP addresses: 216.9.242.33 and 68.171.,242.33.  You will likely see two other addresses tested - those are being retired.

Depending on your firewall configuration, you may need to update it to allow traffic over port 3101 to those addresses.  A better configuration would be to allow traffic based on these recommendations from RIM. That way you'll be ahead of the curve if a change is made in the future.

Enjoy!

I'll be presenting at the inaugural PACLUG meeting held this June 21-22 at the Planet Hollywood Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas.  It is a free event that will be featuring a number of well-known speakers from the Pacific region of the US.  If you're attending THE VIEW conferences that week, why not come in a couple days early and get some additional goodness before these meetings start.  

And if you're a member of one of the LUGs in the Western US, you'll get a very nice  discount to attend THE VIEW Admin and Developer conferences.

To register for the free PACLUG conference to to http://paclug.org.

Here's the second part of working with an Android device from AT&T and Lotus Traveler. This installment will talk about installing the Traveler app on your device using Sideload Wonder Machine from a Mac or Linux computer.  The screenshots will be from my Mac, but the principal is the same either way.  

To start, download the Lotus Traveler app from your Traveler server. This isn't the installer app that is downloaded initially from the Traveler web page, this is the actual Traveler app that will run on your phone. You'll need to point your browser to it directly and download it yourself.  The URL you'll use is http(s)://"your traveler server"/traveler/LotusTraveler/android/LotusTraveler.apk.  Make sure you download the file named LotusTraveler.apk and not LotusInstaller.apk.

Now go download the Sideload Wonder Machine app (registration required) and install it according to the instructions.  After SWM is installed, copy the LotusTraveler.apk file into the folder called "2-Place-App-Here" in the location where SWM is installed.

1. On your Android device, enable USB Debugging  in Settings > Applications > Development.



2. Connect your phone to the Mac or Linux computer and allow the USB drivers to be installed if they aren't already.



3. Open a Terminal session on your Mac and navigate to the installed location of SWM. In my case, it is in my home folder in the swm-mac folder. You can see the listing of files and folders after I copied the LotusTraveler.apk file to the appropriate location.




4. Execute the menu.sh script and you'll see the menu below.  Choose "1. Push app to phone" to begin the install process.




5. After choosing the install option, you'll see a prompt reminding you to have the apk file in the correct location. Press Enter to continue and you'll next see the listing of apps available to be installed.  Press Enter again and it will push the app to the phone.  The password that the app is requesting is your Mac account password.




6. Once the install is done, you'll see the option to restart your phone.  Traveler doesn't require the restart.  You can go in and configure your Traveler server connection and begin receiving email, calendar and contact data from Domino on your phone.

So, if you're a Lotus Notes user who bought an Android device on the AT&T network, you probably want to try out Lotus Traveler.  Unfortunately, when you try to install Traveler on your device, you'll get a rude awakening.  AT&T doesn't like apps that aren't in the market and they block you from installing it.

That's where a nice app called Sideload Wonder Machine comes in.  This post will cover using it on Windows to install Lotus Traveler, and another post will cover Mac (and Linux).

First off, you'll need to download the Lotus Traveler app from your Traveler server. This isn't the installer app that is downloaded initially from the Traveler web page. You'll need to point your browser to it directly and download it yourself.  The URL you'll use is http(s)://"your traveler server"/traveler/LotusTraveler/android/LotusTraveler.apk.  Make sure you download the file named LotusTraveler.apk and not LotusInstaller.apk.

Now go download the Sideload Wonder Machine app (registration required) and install it according to the instructions.  Once you're done, you'll be ready to go.

1. On your Android device, enable USB Debugging  in Settings > Applications > Development.



2. Connect your phone to the PC and allow the USB drivers to be installed if they aren't already.



3. Launch SWM and click the Choose APK file. Navigate to the download location and choose the APK file.






4. Click the Install button and you'll see a command prompt with the progress. (You may also get a prompt from Windows asking permission for the app to run.)






5. Close out of SWM and unplug your device and you'll be ready to login to Traveler and start syncing.

So you can't make it to the ILUG conference in Belfast, what to do?   Join GROUP online for a webinar with Chris Whisonant, Phil Witton and me, the "Admins of the Round Table" to talk about Sametime 8.5 installs and Domino 8.5.2 Administration.  Bring your questions for our round table discussion and also we'll cover the Sametime 8.5.x install process and what's new in the Domino 8.5.1 and 8.5.2 releases that administrators should be checking out.

Join us this Wednesday, November 10 from 11am - 12pm ET (8-9am PT). Go to http://gbs.com/events for more info or click here to register for the webcast.

"See" you this Wednesday!

Have you ever deleted a user from Domino and added them to the Deny Access group only to have HR come back and say, "We've rehired John Doe and he needs back into Notes right now." Of course you have, and if you've ever done this,  you may have come across an issue trying to get the user connected back in after removing their name from the Deny Access group and trying to get the user setup in Notes again. This is because the NameLookup cache hasn't expired.  

To get the user on to the server, you can issue the command "show nlcache reset" on each server they need access to. So if you've got a mail server, directory server, catalog server, Sametime server, app server that they need to get on to, you'll need to go to each server's console and issue the command.  Or, you can use the Send Command to Selected Servers dialog in the admin client to send the command once to all the servers you want.

Another use for this command is if a user changes their Internet password and it "isn't working" - submit the command and they'll be able to get in.