Notes / Domino by Keith Brooks 

HCL Domino 14.5, Fix your iNotes Redirector for Verse  

By Keith Brooks | 7/2/25, 4:34 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

By now, if you have updated your Domino server and relied on iNotes, you have found that it no longer works. HCL was clear about this, and there is no workaround, so if you want iNotes and not Verse, better keep a server on 14.0 and point everyone there. For the rest of us that move forward with the times, we will have seen that logging into the iNotes URL gets you to a pop-up telling hat iNotes is no longer available, and you need to open HCL Verse. If you click on the link, it directs you straight to Verse. iNotes required the iNotes redirector. Well, there is no new redirector, but it did get renamed to Verse redirector(same template name), but it does include some options you probably hadn't considered, and this is how you resolve the problem. If you haven't changed any settings in a while, now is a great time to update them. The redirector has been updated periodically along the way. These are the ones to change or review:

Does TOTP Work for users in a Secondary Directory via DA  

By Keith Brooks | 8/21/24, 6:43 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Like many of our customers, a customer has a large external user community relying on their applications. We have about 7,000 external customers. Some are undoubtedly old customers, but 7,000 is a lot of people. Previously, I wrote about how to bulk add these people into your ID Vault, and that was all fine and good where we have only one names.nsf for everyone and everything. We may have had 2-3 servers in that org. Now, the 7,000 are in a secondary external names.nsf via DA (Directory Assistance). The Problem 1) How do you register and maintain the people in a secondary Directory? 2) Does the DA even work with TOTP?

An Admin Present You Didn't Know You Needed  

By Keith Brooks | 7/4/24, 7:41 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

About 2 weeks ago, I gave an impromptu webinar for Openntf.org as a last-minute fill-in. Openntf, for those that don't know, is the Notes/Domino+ community, where devs, admins, business people, HCL, and others share code and ideas, templates, and projects for the benefit of the greater worldwide community. I wanted to inform people that monitoring Tasks in the Administrator client has some changes. Why is this important? Because unless you are a 1 server company, you have a lot of information to remember, such as: How do you know if DBMT ran? How do you know which server Certmgr runs on? Which web server do you run the Domino REST API on? Which server handles your Backups and Restores, presuming you leverage the v14 options? Is NOMAD running? Is your DirSync working? Are you sure the awesome OnTime Group calendar is running? Have you enabled Aautoupdate yet? One look and you know. Intriguing questions, right?

SSL Cert Renewed in Certmgr but no one could see it  

By Keith Brooks | 12/20/23, 2:31 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Certmgr is the greatest thing in Domino these days if you are an admin. Autorenewing SSL saves so many problems, delays, and potential loss of revenue for customers that it is, in my opinion, one of the best things HCL has added to Domino. Much of the credit for it goes to HCL Lifetime Ambassador Daniel Nashed. When you see him at Engage or DNUG, buy him a beer. Daniel was on hand to help me with my problem tonight, and he was correct with his original assessment, Certmgr should just work. I agreed, and it was working, or so it showed in the view when verifying it using "tell certmgr show certs" at the server console, but we could not see the validated certificates for 2 domains. Since I had manually renewed them today, we should have seen a date of expiration for March 18. Instead, we saw December 17th for the one that expired yesterday, and the other showed January 21. The TLS cache should be auto-refreshing when it gets the new certificates, but appeared to not be doing the task.

Domino V14 - A New User Capability - Mail Merge  

By Keith Brooks | 12/14/23, 7:14 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

I have asked for this for many years, and we got it in V14! This is my guide and first reaction. If you have Admin Assistants or need to do your marketing, you need to use Word or some 3rd party to do what should be a simple effort. HCL has given us a nice Mail Merge inside the notes client. It may take some testing for your first one, but hang in there, it is much easier than other methods I have used.

Lotus Evangelist: SMTP BlackListing, WhiteListing and Log and Reject/Tag  

By Keith Brooks | 10/5/23, 5:09 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

If you rely on your Domino server to handle all your mail, you probably have had numerous attacks on your server over time or even lately, as I did last week. My personal Domino server is a mix of real code, websites, and active email, with various half-coded things and weird templates or customer testing. However, I started getting harassed by sites looking for open SMTP accounts recently and figured something was amiss in my configuration document.

SnTT - Which Database has an FTI?  

By Keith Brooks | 11/3/22, 6:43 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Earlier this year, Martin Vogel and I gave a session at Engage titled "Teaching Young and Old Dogs New Tricks: Notes & Domino Shortcuts You Wish You Knew," It was a great session with a filled capacity of the room. But I was neglectful; I had planned to post some essential tips in my blog at the time but did not get to it. I will try to make up for it over the next few weeks. The first one that not everyone may know about is how to find out which databases have a FTI, Full Text Index. Here is the scenario: You are asked to build new servers for your customer or organization and while looking at the old server, notice some indexing on some databases. This causes you to think, how do I find out which databases have an FTI so they can be rebuilt on the new server?

How to Enable, or Disable, TOTP for HCL Traveler and Verse  

By Keith Brooks | 10/28/22, 3:01 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

After a discussion with fellow HCL Ambassador David Hablewitz, I realized I did not fully explain the HCL Traveler/Verse (will just refer to it as Verse) and TOTP issue in my blog post the other day, I intended to explain the pros and cons of using TOTP and Verse, but I neglected to explain how to enable or disable TOTP and what you do if you have one server or separate servers. The how-to is what this post is about.

Customizing the TOTP Login Form and MFA Pages  

By Keith Brooks | 10/26/22, 3:27 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Continuing the extension of my TOTP session from Collabpshere, I wanted to expand upon modifying the Login Form and MFA page for those who need it and want to know how to do it. The truth is I covered this in my 2021 Collabsphere presentation but since learned a few things which I want to pass on to all of you.

To TOTP, or NOT To TOTP, Traveler/Verse users, THAT is THE Question  

By Keith Brooks | 10/21/22, 7:56 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

The question continues to arise about using TOTP for Verse(Traveler) users. If you attended my session, you heard me discuss the pro (not sure if there is anything beyond my insurance/compliance or security people require it) and the many cons.

TOTP Needs an ID file in the ID Vault to Work, What if some are Missing?  

By Keith Brooks | 10/20/21, 5:06 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Yes, of course, a properly managed Domino environment should have been using the ID Vault for several years now. But we all have customers who, for one reason, or another, just never did it, or worse, think they did, but never checked it worked. And then we hear from them out of the blue to help get TOTP installed and update their environment. No big deal, right? Set up the ID Vault, and when people log in to their Notes client, their ID files get sent to the ID Vault. Newly registered people are also automatically added to the ID Vault. But what do you do about people who solely use webmail/iNotes? How do you get their IDs into the ID Vault?

Changing Some, But Not All, User's Mail Templates  

By Keith Brooks | 10/8/21, 2:16 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

You know how to convert one person, you know how to convert a folder or a directory...But do you know how to convert just some people's templates in your company? Well, here is my story, how I changed 250 out of 450 people's templates.

Hacking Administrators, my AdminCamp session  

By Keith Brooks | 6/23/21, 5:12 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

This is the second of my sessions from AdminCamp. This session had a theme of the Avengers, but was about helping administrators do repetitive tasks faster, easier, and in multiple ways.

When you need OS Acces, but DON'T Have it, OPENNTF to the Rescue  

By Keith Brooks | 4/6/21, 9:52 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Picked up a new client from my home state with a small but necessary business, which they run on their HCL Domino application. The problem started when I realized I needed to scrape their old website from a hosting provider and then put it under HCL Domino. Simple enough to get the site files and fodlers, but when I went to add the site to Domino realized I did not have RDP/VPN/FTP access to their server at the OS level. What do I do?

The Resiliency of HCL Domino and how to get Multiple SSL Certs to work with it  

By Keith Brooks | 11/18/20, 1:35 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

There was a technical limitation since removed in Domino 11 related to how Domino handled the SNI(Server Name Indication). Prior to R11 you can only use one SSL certificate per IP address in Domino. Since I run about a dozen domains on my server, this was not helpful, but now, it works quite well.

Domino Administration Wizardry - Dark Arts Edition  

By Keith Brooks | 3/3/20, 11:58 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

Here are the slides to my session I just completed at the Engage conference. This session was and is aimed at junior admins that need to find better, faster ways to do some redundant tasks. If you have any questions just ask me. The code used is not perfect and alternative options do exist.

NCUG Session on Admin Hacks for Users and Your Sanity  

By Keith Brooks | 6/12/19, 2:31 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

Aimed at New and Old admins. Focus on the Rooms and Resources database changes we have made over the years and ideas for the future of the template.

ISBG now NCUG My Session "Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me Notes Could Do That"  

By Keith Brooks | 6/11/19, 7:18 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Matteo Bisi

This session was about how to make your case to get changes pushed through to end users. How to talk to management and other teams to give users a better experience and in turn provide happier customers and fewer support tickets.

How to Create Multiple Communities in IBM Connections or Conenctions Cloud  

By Keith Brooks | 12/1/16, 7:14 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

As a non developer, this was easier than I imagined it would be, once help arrived from my friends. I have a Lotus IBM Quickr customer, my last one, so any Quickr sites, contact me I am available! Anyway, I am moving them from Quickr to the IBM Connections Cloud environment.

Hope She Takes the Bat  

By Keith Brooks | 12/31/15, 12:00 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

Those in the know, of course, get the title of this post reference, and by now should all know that one of the greatest people from the support side of IBM is shutting down her laptop for the last time with her IBM login. - See more at: http://blog.vanessabrooks.com/2015/12/hope-she-takes-bat.html#sthash.vDadwnV3.dpuf

I Love Admins that want to learn here is my SUTOL Session  

By Keith Brooks | 11/11/15, 9:59 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

Martin and the SUTOL team did a great job with the event. It was really nice to get to see people I either never met in person or have not seen in a long time. And some of us had been at #soccnx 9 last week in Stuttgart.