my posts

Kubernetes and dns

Kubernetes apparently doesn’t use a host file, but instead relies on DNS. So when setting up Orient Me (for Connections 6) on a test environment, you may run into problems. https://github.com/kubernetes/dns/issues/55

Security Reverse Proxy with Connections - forcing all trafic through the interservice url

In a recent project, we are using IBM Datapower as a security reverse proxy to handle authentication and coarse grained authorization for Connections 5.5 .

The approach we follow is similar to what I have described here :
https://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lcwiki.nsf/dx/IBM_Connections_v4.5_and_WebSeal_integration_col_alternative_approach

CCM installation problems with Connections 5.5 - Connections Admin password changes

During installation of CCM with Connections 5.5 using Oracle RAC cluster by my colleagues, they ran in to a number of problems and got the environment in a completely broken state.

The core problem is that FileNet does not support the modern syntax for jdbc datasources. This technote explains what to do.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21978233

That is simple enough .

However , my colleagues continued on a detour, where they also changed the ConnectionsAdmin password. That created a bunch of problems on its own.
It turns out that the Connections 5.5 documentation is incomplete on where to change the occurrences of the Connections Admin user and/or password.

The CCM installer mostly uses the correct source for the username / password (the variables you enter in the installation wizard or the silent responsefile).
But the script to configure the GCD datasources uses a DIFFERENT administrator user.

It goes back to look at the connectionsAdminPassword variable that’s stored in the cfg.py file, in your Connections directory (eg. /data/Connections/cfg.py )

So when you change the password for the Connections Administrator, don’t forget to update it in the cfg.py file as well , before running the CCM installation.

Sametime business cards from Connections

After deploying Connections 5.0 CR4, the business cards and photo’s integration in Sametime chat (the webbrowser version) suddenly stopped working.
The problem is more pronounced in Internet Explorer.
The photo doesn’t load, nor does the business card information (the phonenumber, email address).

Connections and file indexing

The Stellent code that handles extracting content from the files in Connections , relies on an old version of libstdc++.so .

It relies on libstdc++.so.5, while for instance on SLES 12, this is replaced with libstdc++.so.6.

It may not be immediately apparent that this is the problem.

If you use ExportTest.sh , you get a java error, which can throw you off. So use the “exporter” directly, when in doubt.
Check this older blog post, that is about the same problem (but then in Sametime). Installation of Sametime Meeting Server

It also explains how to verify your search indexing settings.

How to determine a websphere server is running in bash ?

When creating a simple bash script (actually, scripts for installing Connections using Puppet https://puppet.com/, but that’s a different story), that would need to check if the Deployment Manager is running, I ran into the following problem.
The serverStatus.sh script always returns “0” as status code, even if the server is stopped. So it’s a bit useless in bash scripting, where normally I’d rely on the return code by a script to determine if it ran successfully. So $? equals 0 when the script ran successfully and not equal “0” when something went wrong.
But like I said already , serverStatus.sh ALWAYS returns “0”.

Let's encrypt certificates for Domino Part 2 - renew certificates (UPDATED)

In the mean time since my last post, things are changing in the Let’s Encrypt world - they’re officially out of beta (https://letsencrypt.org/2016/04/12/leaving-beta-new-sponsors.html) and there’s name changes (pending). Tooling has evolved as well (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/announcing-certbot-new-tls-robot).

That is however not the scope of this update to my original post here Let’s encrypt tls certificate in Domino. This post is about how to automatically renew your certificates.

There’s a slightly annoying thing with the certificates delivered by Let’s Encrypt: they are only valid for 3 months. So you have to renew them every 3 months.
I’ve done that manually so far, but obviously automating this is the better option. Wouldn’t it be nice if this all went automatically :-)

Remove unwanted Basic Authentication prompts in Connections

There is no point in allowing Basic Authentication in environments where users don’t have passwords , for instance when there’s single sign on set up with SPNEGO. Connections (like most IBM products) then relies on LTPA tokens for authentication.

Let's encrypt TLS certificate in Domino

“Let’s encrypt” (https://letsencrypt.org/ ) is a new service that’s currently in public beta (since 3rd of december 2015 https://letsencrypt.org/2015/12/03/entering-public-beta.html)

How to reset all custom themes in Connections communities to default

We started of with Communities in Connections allowing custom themes, but after applying branding, we wanted to disable the custom themes.
The custom themes in Connections Communities 5.0 don’t all use the next gen theme yet, so with custom branding, some things look really ugly.

Connections Cognos for Metrics and Oracle 11 RAC Cluster

In a recent project, we struggled with the Cognos installation and configuration for Connections 5.0 Metrics against an Oracle 11 RAC Cluster.

For the installation of Connections components, we can use the Oracle RAC cluster directly (through it’s load balanced address), instead of simple database connections (just a database server and port), but for Cognos, this does not work.

The difference is explained here : http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21344465

Default NextGen theme is not displayed after performing a IBM Connections 5 Silent Installation

If you perform a silent installation of Connections 5 (which of course you do, if you are a professional :-) ), the default NextGen theme is not displayed.

We only noticed this ourselves after performing several client installations … oops.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21700136