But recently, I have problem with my domino server, it crashed with error message that the transaction log is full.

I do full backup every week, and incremental backup daily, it should be enough. I check the web for what might cause the problem, and all point to the transaction log problem.

Restarting the domino server, fixed the problem, until than it crashed again, with the same error.  But now, I’m really curious, is there something wrong with my transaction log?

I found the problem accidentally, when I tried to backup individual mail file, I can’t found many mail files from Brighstor Arcserve backup user interface.

Than I realize that all the mail files that Brighstor Arcserve backup can’t found are under the directory link.

Recently, I added a new harddisk into the server, and make it as a additional drive (drive E). Than I moved several mail databases to that drive, and than created a directory link so Lotus Domino can see the mail databases.

Yes, the Lotus Domino can see the databases, but not Brighstor Arcserve backup. That maybe the problem.

I can’t found anything in the web, so join the CA forum and ask the question, the answer is that I should pacthed the software.

But, than I upgraded to Brighstor Arcserve backup R11.5 instead.

Now, with Brighstor Arcserve backup R11.5, it can see all the databases that are under directory link, I hope that it can solved the problem and no more crashed.

But, Formula have many method that Lotus Script do not have, like @Implode and @Explode. Even we can write our ownLotus Script function to do that, it just a waste of time and energy.

But, we have Evaluate in Lotus Script.

Evaluate  function is one of many of my favorite functions, because it able to run Formula and than pass the result of that Formula intoLotus Script variable (variant).

This is the syntax of Evaluate

variant = notesSession.Evaluate( formula$, doc )

We can use Evaluate function to pass the result from any kind of Formula,  from simple formula like @UserName to more complex formula like @Implode.

Recently, I use Evaluate in my program, to shorten the length of theLotus Script.

I need to calculate the difference in days between two date, but only in business days ( so saturday and sunday will not be counted also holidays).

Formula already have the function to calculate that, so I don’t need to create another lengthly Lotus Scriptfunction just to calculate that. I use the formula instead, so I need the Evaluate function.

varDay=Evaluate(“@BusinessDays(@Date(datFinal);@Date(@Now);1;datPublicHoliday)”,doc)

Remember that Evaluate function return value is variant.

With Evaluate, Formula and Lotus Script can coexist together.

One of the important thing in workflow is email notification, to let users know that they have one job to do, or just simply notification.

Example,  if a staff create a leave request and when he or she submit the request, his or her manager will get an email notification about the request.

I have this one of my favorite sub program to create an email notification, well I named it “CreateEmailNotification” .

If you like, you can use it for free. Just copy the sub program in one or new Script Library.

This is the sub program.

=====Start of Sub Program
Sub CreateMailNotification(doc As notesdocument, strSendTo As Variant, strSubject As String, strCopyTo As Variant)

Dim session As notessession
Dim db As notesdatabase
Dim docMail As notesdocument
Dim rtitem As Variant

Set db = doc.parentdatabase
Set session = db.Parent
Set docMail=db.createdocument
Set rtitem=docMail.CreateRichTextItem(“Body”)

If strSendTo(0)=”" Then Exit Sub

‘=====set mail
docMail.Form = “Memo”
docMail.From = session.UserName
docMail.Principle = session.UserName
docMail.SendTo = strSendTo

If Isarray(strCopyTo) Then
If strCopyTo(0)<>”" Then
docMail.CopyTo = strCopyTo
End If
Else
If strCopyTo<>”" Then
docMail.CopyTo = strCopyTo
End If
End If

docMail.Recipients = strSendTo
docMail.Subject = strSubject
docMail.PostedDate = Now

‘=====set body field
Call rtitem.AppendText(“Please click this doclink to see more details about the status ” + ” “)
Call rtitem.AppendDocLink( doc, “click to open document”)
Call rtitem.AddNewLine( 2 )

‘=====send mail
Call docMail.send(False)
End Sub
=====End of Sub Program

Feel free to do some modification if necessary.

You can call it from any lotusscript with simple line like this.

call Call CreateMailNotification (doc, doc.nmSendTo, strSubject,doc.nmCopyTo)

Don’t forget to put use “Script Libary Name” first.

This is just a quick look, so don’t expect a full review of lotus notes 8.5 client.

New signature

Now users can create a more beautiful signature rather than text only signature or user have to create a html file. Users can create a colorful signature or even attach a picture.

Export Contact

Now users can export their contact into csv or vcf file.  It will be easier for users to copy their contacts to others email clients.

Default email, calendar and contact

After we finished install and configure lotus notes 8.5 client, it will ask if we want to setup lotus notes as our default email, calendar and contact program. Before it will only ask for default email program.

New Right Click

Lotus Notes 8.5 have a new right click menu, and much more cleaner and nicer than the lotus notes 8.02.

Those three new features that I quickly recognize after I setup the lotus notes 8.5 client. I will added more in this post, if I have found more features.

Have fun with the new Lotus Notes 8.5 client.

What are the benefits if we upgrade our lotus notes and domino?

Are there any new feature(s) that we can use?

You can learn all the features in Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 in here, and these are the features that I really like.

Lotus Domino Attachment and Object Services (DAOS)

For me, as lotus domino administrator, where I have many GB’s mailboxes tha full of attachments, are really a life saving. If only lotus domino 8.5 only have DAOS as the only new feature, I still like to upgrade.

“In databases that use DAOS, Lotus Domino no longer stores an attachment within the document itself. Instead, the DAOS-enabled server saves a single copy of the attachment in the DAOS repository and replaces the attachment with a reference to that DAOS object. If an attachment exists in multiple databases, the attachment is stored only once per server partition, and the reference counts are increased. Therefore, when an attached file is sent to multiple users on the same server, disk space usage is substantially reduced. As impressive as the reduction in disk space can be, there is an even greater potential cost savings associated with DAOS. DAOS can store attachments on a different device than the Lotus Notes databases themselves. In our internal email performance benchmark, DAOS accounts for less than 2 percent of the overall I/O (see the real-world examples that follow). Because of this separation, DAOS can use lower-cost disks without affecting overall response times.”

so, if someone send an email with 2 MB of attachment to 10 people, without DAOS it will cost you 20 MB space in the server. With DAOS, it will only cost you 2 MB space in the server.

For short, DAOS will reduce the need of bigger disks and less time to backup.

You can learn more about DAOS in here.

Notes ID Vault

I’m using Escrow Agent to mail all notes id to an mail-in database. So I always have the backup of notes id file for my users. Also I also save a physical file of notes id in safe places. Therefore if users forget their notes id password, or simply loose it, I always have the copy available.

With Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5, they have the new feature called Notes ID Vault. Where not only administrator able to recover lost notes id file, but the users also able to reset their own passwords.

The benefits of using an ID vault include:

• The ability for authorized personnel to change (reset) passwords on IDs stored in a vault when users forget them, without access to the ID files or the vault
• Support for the use of a custom application to reset passwords
• Easy recovery of lost or damaged user IDs
• Automatic synchronization of multiple ID copies
• No user involvement during ID renames
• No user involvement during ID key rollover

Notes Shared Login

Before Lotus Notes 8.5, we have what we called Notes Single Login, but this new feature should be more secure than Notes Single Login.

But, I still like the simple enter your password dialog box, rather than trusting my password for automatic login.

There are many interesting new features in lotus notes and domino 8.5 like lotus domino designer now run on top of eclipse, XPages etc. But what I like the most is the DAOS, it really a break through on how lotus domino stores they attachments.

And I think, upgrade to Lotus notes and Domino 8.5 is worthed.

Lotus foundation is a “software suite” that has it own operating system based on striped Open Suse linux, and a striped down version of Lotus Domino server. It has it own anti spam and anti virus software, file sharing, firewall and even VPN server, that why I called it a software suite.

This is a software suite, so it can be installed in any hardware, but maybe some IBM Business Partner will sell it with the hardware to reduce hardware compatibilities issues.

And for the email clients, it support webmail, lotus notes clients, ms outlook and any other email clients that support pop3 an
In the advertisements, it state that it can up and running in less than 30 minutes, and it designed for small office with no IT personnel.

The suite can self configured, it mean that it will automatically detect the network infrastructure and configure it self based on it founding.

If the suite detected that there are some malfunction in part of it software, it will try to heal it self, by restore the configuration from the last backup, and it will done automatically.

In the demo, the hardware come with two sata harddisks, on for the suite and the other one for the backup. If something really bad happen, it will only take 30 minutes to restore to it default stat, and maybe another 10-30 minutes to restore from the backup.

You can get the brochure here, and the datasheet here.

I guess it true, that the suite is designed for small office that has no IT personnel, and soon I’ll be out of the job .

This is a big news, for people who maintains email servers everywhere in the world.

That the White House email server was down almost for a day. Yes, the White House, where they should hire experts from around the world.

But the email server was down.

Source

How is it possible that the e-mail system for the White House could go down that long, a caller asked? Press secretary Robert Gibbs had just apologized on live television for the lack of any e-mail contact.

“We still don’t know,” the help-line guy said, adding that two e-mail servers had been rebooted but that two others remained mysteriously down, with no immediate explanation.

He then abruptly put the caller on hold, returning momentarily to say that he was no longer authorized to answer questions.

Remained mysteriously down, lol, that is very funny.

Source

As of Tuesday morning, the White House was once again sending its regular slew of e-mails.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged the outage during a briefing to reporters Monday afternoon. White House aides at the briefing had to pass out photocopies of the executive orders signed by the president that day, rather than e-mailing them to reporters. The outage, however, did not appear to cause any major disruptions at the White House.

Well I guess email is not really important in the white house, while many other business depend heavily on email traffic.

And that what will hapen if they used MS Exchange as their mail server.

Or, maybe they should change it back into Lotus Domino/Notes system? Maybe now they regret the migration?

But even the easiest documentation can become confusing sometimes. One of them is how to enable SSL in Lotus Domino servers.

I have to read it many times until I understand the concept, so to avoid others to have my difficulties; I created this simple how to.

SSL requires certificate, while Lotus Domino support the certificate that created by third party organizations, Lotus Domino also have the capabilities to create it own certificate called Self-Certified Certificate. The problem with Self-Certified Certificate that you need to accept the certificate (trust) before you can use it, while the third party certificate already trusted.

This how to will only to discuss about how to create Self-Certified Certificate, this how to will not discuss about the certificate that created by third party organizations. The idea of self-certified certificate is that you can quickly setup your own SSL certificate.

This how to required Lotus Notes client, access to Lotus Domino server as Lotus Domino administrator, and have access to copy files to Lotus Domino server.

Server Certificate Administration Database

When you install Lotus Domino in the first place, it will automatically created a database called Server Certificate Administration. You will need this database to create your own Self-Certified Certificate. Find and open the Server Certificate Administration or certsrv.nsf in the server, if not available you can create it with the template: csrv50.ntf, give the database name certsrv.nsf

There are several options in the left menu, just ignore it. We only want to create Self-Certified Certificate, click the “Click Key Ring with Self-Certified Certificate“.

Create Key Ring

Now, there are several fields that need to be filling in. There should be enough help in the Quick Help, but to make it easier, these are the examples:

Key Ring Information

Key Ring File Name

The file name of the key ring, the key ring should have kyr extension. If you have several servers that need SSL connection, better give it more understanding name. In this example I give my file name as selfcert-st01.kyr, where st01 is my server name.

Password and Password Verify

No need to explain about it.

Distinguished Name

Common Name

The Full Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the server. In this example I put st01.indomino.net, because my server will be accessible with st01.indomino.net. Make sure that you can connect to your server with your FQDN.

Organization

Explain about your organization, or your company. I use indomino in the organization.

Organizational Unit (optional)

If you need to break your organization in more details, maybe based on departments or locations. I leave it blank; you can put your department or location.

City or Locality (optional)

Your city name, I put Jakarta

State or Province

Your Province, I put Jakarta

Country

Because I live in Indonesia, I put ID

Make sure everything is correct than click the big button in the bottom of the page “Create Key Ring with Self-Certified Certificate“

It will create the key ring and it will notify you that the key ring has been created.

The process will create two file names in your notes data folder, selfcert-st01.kyr and selfcert-st01.sth. The files will be located in your local drive. You need to copy both file to the Lotus Domino server in the Lotus Domino Data directory.

Enable the SSL

Now the fun part, how to enable the Self-Certified Certificate with your Lotus Domino.

1. Open your Lotus Domino directory, you have to have full access to it.
2. Find and edit your current server document configuration (If you using internet sites you have to edit or add the internet sites documents)
3. Go to Ports tab and find the SSL settings
4. In the SSL key file name field,  type your kyr file that you just created, I put selfcert-st01.kyr and just let other setting as default.
5. Now you can enable SSL in any protocols, in this how to I will enable it in HTTP protocol.
6. Go to Web tab, and find the SSL port status then change it into enable
7. Click save and close

Now you can access your website with https, use your server FQDN to access your website.

if you access your website via internet explorer or firefox, there will be an error message telling you that the certificate is not trusted, just ignore it and click continue.

To prevent this annoying pop up, you need to accept the certificate in your certificate list.

This how to accept the certificate in MS Internet Explorer.

In the address bar, there will be a message telling that the site have certificate error.

Follow these steps to add your certificate as trusted certificate.

1. Click it and click view certificate
2. Click install certificate, don’t click automatically install, click browse instead.
3. Select the trusted root certificate authority, and then click finish.
4. There will be a big warning, just ignore it and click yes.
5. Restart internet explorer, now you can access your website without certificate warning.

Now you have SSL enabled Lotus Domino server. You can use SSL not only in the HTTP, but also in Email and LDAP.

With HTTPS enabled, your users can change their own password from webmail.

]]> http://www.indomino.net/blog/2009/01/17/how-to-enable-ssl-in-lotus-domino/feed/ 3 http://www.indomino.net/blog/2008/12/18/problem-with-pop3-in-domino-8/ http://www.indomino.net/blog/2008/12/18/problem-with-pop3-in-domino-8/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:46:04 +0000 bfebrian http://www.indomino.net/blog/2008/12/18/problem-with-pop3-in-domino-8/ There are still many users that using outlook as they email client. So far it run smoothly. Users can do send and receive without much problem. Most problem that I encounter are double emails because the send and receive process disconnected in the middle and the pst file already reach it maximum size which is 20 GB and that is very rare.

But few days ago, I got called form three of my users that they have problem when receiving emails. It always popping up for password, even though they already entered the correct one.

I checked the server log, and it said something about maildrop exclusive access. This is common problem, the problem usually solved just for waiting three or five minute. But this time, waiting for ten minutes still did not solved the problem.

So I check the server for more hints.

From Domino administrator, I check the server task, there I saw that there is pop3 task still providing task for the problematic users even the users already closed their outlook, so I guess the pop3 task is hanging or something.

So I tried to restart the pop3 server in office hours, and that caused more problem. The pop3 server can’t closed completely because it seem that the pop3 for the problematic users can’t be closed. So I have to restart the whole server.

After restarted the server I tried to do send and receive again. First is running and then asking for the pasword again. I checked the server task and realize that the pop3 task is hanging again.

Searched both google and lotus domino forum and there is no helpful hints.

It’s time to be panic.

There was not much that I can do, except to told the users that temporarily they can access their email via webmail, while I tried to solved the problem.

In a way home, I realize that what if one of email is corrupt and cause the problem?

So at home I login to the server again, marked all the emails as read via webmail so it will not be downloaded via pop3, and than restart the server.

After the server restarted I quickly check the server task, there is no pop3 task hanging. Good.

I setup a new outlook account for one of m problematic user and than do the send and receive. It worked.

I did several task, and it seem it solved the problem.

So the rest of the emails, I downloaded them via imap not pop3.

I still don’t know why email got corrupted and cause problem for pop3 task.

I’m sure that this problem will happen again, even I don’t know why it happpen, but at least I know how to solved it.

• Domino Web Access
• Domino Web Access Lite
• Domino Web Access Ultra Lite

Big thanks to Gunawan’s blog who give me the news about the new web access ultra lite and how to enable it.

Domino Web Access
This is the standard web access. If your main internet browser is Internet Explorer and you have fast internet connection, than this kind of web access is the most suitable for you.
As normal Lotus Notes client, It give you more features, like preview and full access to your calendar.
I still having problem to access Domino Web Access via my Firefox 3.0.1, it still buggy. One big problem that I can’t attached any files to new email. I’m not sure if the problem is in Domino or Firefox, but I do hope that both parties can work together to solved this problem.

Domino Web Access Lite
As in the name, this web access is a liter web access version than the standard. If you have slow or medium internet connection maybe you can try this web access. It does not give you preview and full calendar functionality, but it will give you tabs for email and sidebar for calendaring.
You can easily change from full dwa to lite dwa from the right top menu.

Domino Web Access Ultra Lite
This is new since Lotus Domino 8.02, designed for mobile users with smartphone or pda. It designed to run on iphone but it run perfectly in my Opera Mini under my Nokia E61. But because of the landscape screen in Nokia E61 , the icons does not fit very well. It should fit well in any screen that in portrait mode.
As in Gunawan’s Blog you can try to access your Domino Web Access Ultra Lite via Google Chrome, but because Google Chrome is using some part of Opera engine, I think it should run in Opera browser too (it run in my Opera Mini).

Domino still support standard webmail for older internet browser or non standard internet browser (I can access webmail via Opera Mini).
For more security, it is wise to enable SSL encryption in your web server to prevent someone else hacking into your data, specially your username and password.