Using SSL with Lotus Quickr (Domino)

If you want to use SSL for Lotus Quickr (Domino Services) you have to do three four different things:

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1. Configure the Domino HTTP task correctly for HTTPS

2. Activate SSL for the Domain catalog server and set the correct port numberi n QPCONFIG.XML:

 <search_places …..”> 
   <domain_catalog_server ssl=”true”> 
      <port>443</port> 
      <domino_server_name>………<domino_server_name> 
      <hostname>………..</hostname> 
   </domain_catalog_server> 
</search_places> 

3. Activate SSL for cluster

 <cluster> 
   <master ….. ssl=”true”> 
      <port>443</port> 
      <hostname>……….</hostname> 
      <path_prefix></path_prefix> 
   </master> 
</cluster> 

Important: It is not quite obvious that you have to do step 3 also in a non-clustered environment. But if you do not add this configuration option you end up with connector links which do no longer work. Instead of links like “https://servername.domain/……” you get links like “https://servername.domain:80/……” which will not work because of the wrong port number.

Update:

There is another thing to do:

4. Unregister and register the server again:

On the Domino server console run the following commands:

load qptool unregister -server
load qptool register -server

Otherwise the links in MyPlaces will still point to “http://” instead of “https://”.

Some issues while upgrading Lotus Quickr (Domino)

While upgrading Lotus Quickr 8.0 to 8.0.0.2 (HF4) at a customer site we experienced two problems:

The first thing was that the command “l qptool upgrade -f -a”, which you have to do in order to get all places upgraded to the new version, promotes all place managers to super users. So you should check your places afterwards and correct them if necessary. A PMR is opened and currently under investigation. You can see a corresponding message also in the Domino server logs (“Upgrade: Upgrading Place ‘Main.nsf’, promoting ‘CN=xxx yyy’ to SuperUser.”) if you set a higher log level for the upgrade process (set the variable “QuickPlaceUpgradeLogging=4” in the NOES.INI before running the upgrade command; attention: you will get many messages if you do have many places to upgrade, so be careful by using this parameter).

The other issue was that after upgrading all places the users did not see any documents in the Quickr connectors. The reasons seems to be that “l qptool upgrade -f -a” did not upgrade the places correctly. What worked for us was to issue the command “l qptool upgrade -f -a” again. after the second run all places worked correctly with the connector again. Another PMR was opened for that as well.

Lotus Quickr: New QPCONFIG.XML parameters

With version 8.0.0.2 of Lotus Quickr (Domino Services) there are several new parameters which can be configured in the QPCONFIG.XML. It is worth a look into the QPCONFIG_SAMPLE.XML after upgrading the server.

Some of the new parameters control …

… if clicking on a place link opens a new browser window or not
… if public places should be listed in “MyPlaces” for anonymous users

Lotus Quickr: Special characters in user name cause problems

If you have special characters (e.g. German umlaut) as part of the Lotus Notes user name and are using Lotus Quickr (Domino Services) you might experience problems with the Quickr connectors.

As soon as you add a user who has a special character in his name as a Superuser of to place, all users who have access to this place will no longer see any places in their connector list.

The problem is already reported to developement.

The only currently available workaround is to give a maximum of Manager access to such users.

This again shows that it is a good recommendation not to use special characters for user names ….

Lotus Connections: Java exception when deleting an activity etc.

If you experience a Java execption in Lotus Connections stating that you do not have enough rights when deleting an activity, adding a person to an activity or changing an activity to public or back to privat then this might be your solution:

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When you log-on to Activities, it creates a JSESSIONID after successful authentication. From Activities, it calls the Profiles servlet when you deal with users (for example, when you click to view Profile, search for users when adding members), sometimes, it happens that Profiles application’s JESESSIONID overwrites the JSESSIONID of the Activities. When this happens, the logon user tied to JSESSIONID of Activities is un-identified and lost the access rights.

Please use these steps to setup JVM parameters to re-use the JSESSIONID’s between applications (these steps are documented in V1.0.2 information center)….

If you are installing Profiles with either Activities or Blogs or both, and you installed Profiles into a separate WebSphere Application Server profile from Activities and Blogs, but you plan to use the same host name for these features, you must configure the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for Activities and Blogs on each server to reuse the session ID.

To do so, complete the following steps:

From the Integrated Solutions Console for the WebSphere Application Server hosting the features, expand Servers, and then select Application Servers.

Select the Application server hosting the Activities or Blogs feature, and then select Server Infrastructure > Java and Process Management > Process Definition > Java Virtual Machine > Custom Properties > New.

Add a new Custom Property for the JVM to reuse the session ID by entering the following values in the fields:

System Property Name: HttpSessionIdReuse
System Property Value: true

Save your changes.

Repeat these steps for the Application Server of the other feature, either Activities or Blogs, if you are installing both.

Restart WebSphere Application Server.

Sametime awareness not working in Lotus Quickr/Connections

If your preferred browser language is set to German (or another non-English language) you might experience the problem that Sametime awareness is not working in Lotus Connections or Lotus Quickr (J2EE services).

To correct this you need to edit the file “res.js” on your Sametime server. The file resides in the directory (..\domino\html\sametime\stlinks\de (“de” for German, you might need to use the directory for your language)).

Update the line

“var WIN_INVITE_WIDTH=;”

to

“var WIN_INVITE_WIDTH=360;”

Afterwards do not forget to copy the file “res.js” into the STLINKS directory on your Lotus Quickr or Lotus Connections server (you have copied the STLINKS directory before to enable Sametime integration).

After restarting all servers awareness will work correctly.

[Thanks to Hagen Bauer]

Lotus Quickr: Hotfix 2 for Quickr 8.0.0.2 available

On FixCentral there is the new Hotfix 2 for Lotus Quickr 8.0.0.2 (Domino Services) available. It replaces Hotfix 1 so you do not need to install both hotfixes.

If you already had installed Hotfix 1 you just have to replace the files with the newer versions in the ZIP file and copy the additional files to your Quickr server.

Again some files do have the read-only attribut set and you should remove it after copying (this time the files going to the Quickr HTML Common directory are affected which might not be a problem but you never know…)

After restarting the server you have to run the following commands (the same as after installing Hotfix 1):

load qptool upgrade -f -server
load qptool unlock -a
load qptool upgrade -f -a

Afterwards restart the HTTP task and everything should be fine.

Although not mentioned in the fix list subscribing to Quickr feeds with Firefox 2.0 now seems to work correctly. [Update: It does work for team places and wikis but still not for blogs …]