Launchpad does not open on AIX or Linux operating systems

More and more Lotus products are using the Tivoli Installation Manager for installing. In order to start the launchpad.sh on AIX or Linux machines you need to have a supported browser installed. In case your installation is using Firefox version 10 or higher launchpad will not start and an error message is shown that no supported browser has been found.

To correct this error you need to edit the launchpad/browser.sh script as described in this support article.

Virtualbox: Cloning Suse Linux VMs

If you try to clone a Virtualbox VM with a newer version of Suse Linux the machine will no longer boot afterwards. You will get error messages like

Trying manual resume from
resume device dev/disk/by-id/ata-…-part1 not found (ignoring)
Waiting for device dev/disk/by-id/ata-…-part2 to appear
Could not find dev/disk/by-id/ata-…-part2
Want me to fall back to dev/disk/by-id/ata-…-part2 ? (Y/N)

The reason for that is that newer versions of Suse reference the storage device (the disks)  “by-id” instead of “by-name”. A simple solution for this problem can be found in this blog entry.

Websphere: Replacing the default IBM self-signed certificate with another certificate

Just in case I will need it the next time … This article is a good description how to

  • Adding trusted root and intermediary certificates to the Cell default trust store
  • Generating a certificate signer request
  • Installing a signed certificate
  • Configuring the servers to use the signed certificate

Although the article is written for Lotus sametime in can be used for other Websphere servers as well.

Using Sametime Web API features with SSL

If you want to use the Sametime Web API features of the Sametime Standalone or Sametime Embedded Client in Notes if you have enabled SSL for awareness / presence information you need first to do some steps on the client side in order to enable SSL for the Sametime Web API:

  1. Download the Sametime SDK (Software Development Kit)
  2. Extract the files somewhere, for example to C:\STSDK (you only need to extract the folder client/connectWeApi)
  3. Navigate to C:\STSDK\client\connectWebApi\samples\com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.webapi.ssl.feature
  4. Edit the file “ssl.txt” with a text editor
  5. Edit the last two lines so they look like this (make sure they point to the right path where you extracted the files in step #2 above):
    • com.ibm.ssl.trustStore.59669=C\:/STSDK/client/connectWebApi/samples
      /com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.webapi.ssl.feature/testtruststore.jks
    • com.ibm.ssl.keyStore.59669=C\:/STSDK/client/connectWebApi/samples
      /com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.webapi.ssl.feature/testkeystore.jks
    • Attention: You need to escape the “:” with a “\” in Windows and the line breaks above should NOT be there in your file (they are just for displaying it correctly here on the site)
    • The above is only as a demo. You can use your own key and trust store files here (and would need to apply the correct password in this file as well!)
  6. Save the file
  7. Navigate to your workspace config directory. The location is different if you are using the Sametime Standalone Client or the Embedded Client in Notes:
    • Sametime Embedded Client:  <Notes Data Directory>\workspace\.config
    • Sametime Standalone Client: %userprofile%\Application Data\Lotus\Sametime\.config
  8. Open the file “rcpinstall.properties” with a text editor
  9. Add the following two lines to the end of the file (again, make sure you modify the path to point to the location of the ssl.txt file in step 4 above):
    • -Dcom.ibm.pvc.webcontainer.port.secure=59669
    • -Dcom.ibm.pvc.webcontainer.ssl.configfile=C:/STSDK/client/connectWebApi/samples
      /com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.webapi.ssl.feature/ssl.txt
  10. Save the file
  11. Check if there is already a file “webcontainer.properties” in the “.config” directory. If yes, rename it to another name.
  12. If you are using the Sametime Embedded Client in Notes enable the Web API feature (if not already done before).
  13. Now start your Sametime Standalone Client or your Notes Client and log in to Sametime
  14. Wait about 15 seconds after you have successfully logged in.
  15. If you have used a self-signed certificate above, open your browser and go to https://localhost:59669/stwebapi/listservices and accept the self-signed certificate forever

[Thanks to Luis Benitzez]

IBM Redbook: Creating Integrated Web Experience with IBM Lotus collaboration software

An interesting new redbook “IBM Redbooks: Creating Integrated Web Experience with IBM Lotus collaboration software”  discusses how to take a specific set of products (IBM Lotus Domino, IBM WebSphere Portal, IBM Lotus Quickr Domino, IBM Connections and IBM Sametime) and use them to create an integrated web environment.

The purpose of this guide is to describe all of the steps required to create a specific example of an integrated web environment based on Domino, Sametime, Portal, Connections and Quickr Domino:

0. Preface

1. Introduction to Creating Integrated Web Experience with IBM Lotus collaboration software 

2. System architecture

3. Prerequisite information

4 Installation of the integrated web environment servers

  • 4.1 Lotus Domino server installation
  • 4.1.1 Domino LDAP – Advanced configuration and verification
  • 4.1.2 Domino HTTP – Advanced configuration and verification
  • 4.2 IBM Sametime installation
  • 4.3 IBM Connections installation
  • 4.4 Websphere Portal installation
  • 4.5 Lotus Quickr for Domino installation

5. Implement and test single sign-on

6. Integration overview

7. Portal Integration

  • 7.1 Portal and iNotes integration
  • 7.2 Portal and Connections integration
  • 7.3 Portal and Quickr Domino integration
  • 7.4 Portal and Sametime integration

8. Connections integration

  • 8.1 Connections and Sametime integration
  • 8.1.1 Connections integration with STProxy for chat and awareness
  • 8.2 Connections and Quickr Domino integration
  • 8.2.1 Communities integration with Quickr Domino
  • 8.2.2 Activities integration with Quickr Domino

9 iNotes integration

  • 9.1 iNotes — Sametime integration
  • 9.2 iNotes — Quickr Domino integration

10. Quickr Domino integration

  • 10.1 Lotus Quickr for Domino and Sametime integration
  • 10.2 Lotus Quickr for Domino and Lotus Connections integration

11. Sametime Integration

  • 11.1 Sametime and Connections integration

12 Creating common navigation across the products

  • 12.1 Customizing the WebSphere Portal theme
  • 12.2 Customizing IBM Connections theme
  • 12.3 Customization of Lotus Quickr Domino theme
  • 12.4 Navigating from iNotes to other products

Lotus Quickr Connectors: Location of the system-wide settings of the connector registry keys

Please be aware that the location of the system wide registry keys for the Lotus Quickr Connector are different if you are using Windows 32-Bit or Windows 64-Bit:

Location of the system-wide settings of the connector registry keys:

Windows 32-Bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IBM\Lotus Quickr

Windows 64-Bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\IBM\Lotus Quickr

The user-specific settings are the same for both 32-bit and 64-bit and are located in:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\IBM\Lotus Quickr

IBM Sametime 8.5.2: Some things I learned during installation

Just for my reminder for the next time here are two things I learned today during a Sametime 8.5.2 installation. I did a test installation following the instructions in Frank’s presentation.

However the installation of the Meeting Server failed with the following error:

ADMA0158I: [EJBDeploy] Error executing deployment: java.lang.RuntimeException. Error is Application “com.ibm.etools.ejbdeploy.batch_extension” could not be found in the registry.

To solve this error I  deleted the contents of the following directory EXCEPT for the ‘config.ini’ file (there is a technote describing a similar issue while upgrading to Sametime 8.5.2 IFR1):

$WASHOME/deploytool/itp/configuration

I also had also to delete the reference to the Meeting Server in the Websphere profile registry. Just delete the line referencing your meeting server installation (something like “<profile isAReservationTicket=”false” isDefault=”false” name=”meetingSTMPNProfile1″ path=”C:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\meetingSTMPNProfile1″ template=”C:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profileTemplates\default”/>) in the file

$WASHOME/properties/profileRegistry.xml

After I did that, I restarted the installation of the meeting Server and everything went fine then.

Later I had also a problem while installing the Media Manager. As soon as I started the installation manager on the machine it failed without an error message (no splash screen apeared at all). You just saw a java dump appearing but with no real information about the crash reason.

I think that the issue might have been related to my specific environment. I installed the servers in a Virtualbox environment and I solved the issue by decreasing the RAM for the machine temporarily to 3048 MB and adding a second virtual processor. I have no idea why this might have been an effect but afterwards the installation manager could be started without problems again and the Media Manager installation went fine.