Thomas Hampel

 3 August 2019
Two weeks ago at the the HCL Factory Tour #3 we've shown the (possibly) smallest Domino server ever built.
With just 47,88 ccm (6,3 x 9,5 x 0,8 cm) it is just a little bigger than a credit card and small enough to fit your pocket. Also, for those of you who remember, it's much smaller than the Lotus Foundations box which Mike Rhodin introduced at Lotusphere 2008.
Thanks to Panagenda we also were able to show that you can run Domino off the grid.

What kind of hardware is this based on?
It is Zotac Pi 225 pico, a mini PC fully equiped with CPU, memory and storage, all combined in a case that is passively cooled.
The case itself looks like a thin 2,5" HDD - but thinner (for US folks : 3.76 x 2.48 x 0.31 inches )


Compared to the well known Raspberry Pi, this Zotac device is actually smaller (thinner) because it does not expose an ethernet port.


It weights less than 500g and is hardware specs looked promissing: Intel N3350 dual-core CPU (x86 compatible!), 4GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (expandable via microSD card), Intel HD Graphics 500,
Furthermore it provides two USB 3.0 Type-C Ports for connecting keyboard, HDMI an ethernet adapter. It also provides an internal 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna, which I want use for creating a WiFi Hotspot later on.
You can find it here on Amazon for approx. €150

Stage 1 - Installing Linux
Zotac comes preinstalled with Windows 10 - an operating system which beside being clunky is not supported for running Domino.
Of course my idea was to install Domino on Linux. As you know IBM/HCL is supporting to run Domino on SuSE or Redhat Linux and also fully supporting CentOS since last year.
After spending a few hours with CentOS I had to learn by hard that it can not simply be installed on this Zotac device because it is missing support for this specific Intel Atom CPU.
The installation caused errors and booting it took several hours before it finally failed.

Plan B:
Switch to Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (alternative installer!) which installs without problems from a USB stick.

Stage 2 - Linux tuning
Although the installation itself completed in a few minutes there still are some errors when booting up.
Most annoying this one: systemd-gpt-auto-generator: Failed to dissect: Input/output error. which is caused by the device using an internal MMC card as disk storage.

To fix this error we have to modify the kernel boot parameters as follows:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

add a parameter to the line "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT"

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="systemd.gpt_auto=0"

After saving changes we need to tell grub to update the bootloader using

sudo update-grub

Stage 3 - Install Docker
We could have installed Domino natively on Linux but why wasting time if we can also run Domino on Docker.
Installation of Docker on Ubuntu Linux is staight forward

sudo apt-get install docker-ce

To avoid having to type 'sudo' every time you run the docker command, just add your username to the docker group.

sudo usermod -aG docker ${USER}

For changes to take effect, log off and log on again.


Stage 4 - Create Domino Image for Docker
In order to run Domino in Docker I'm using my (more powerful) MacBook and this Github repo to build a docker image.
All that needs to be done is...
- clone the repository (or download and extract the zip file) to a directory of your choice.
- Add the Domino Linux installation package + FP2 package into the subfolder "software"
- run "./build domino"
A few minutes later you'll have a perfect Domino image to work with...


Now we need to export this image by turning it into a tar file using this command:

docker image save -o domino1001fp2.tar ibmcom/domino:10.0.1FP2

Copy the resulting file "domino1001fp2.tar" to a USB stick

Stage 5 - Import Docker Image
Attach the USB stick to the Zotac device and copy the file  "domino1001fp2.tar" to a directory of your choice, e.g. /tmp
Then import the image using the command:

docker image load -i domino1001fp2.tar

Verify results using the command docker image ls - you should now have one image listed.

in case any TAGs are missing, add them using

docker image tag ibmcom/domino:10.0.1FP2
docker image tag ibmcom/domino:latest

Stage 6 - Run Domino and Enjoy
Finally running Domino in this configuration is a piece of cake:
At first create a persistent volume - this is required because we would like to preserve our data directory in case the container is being restarted or recreated.

docker volume create dominodata

then spin up a (new) Domino server with a name of your choice.

docker run -it -d -e "ServerName=Zotac" -e "AdminPassword=passw0rd" -p 1352:1352 -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -v dominodata:/local/notesdata --cap-add=SYS_PTRACE --name domino ibmcom/domino:10.0.1FP2

Without supplying a config file, this image will not start the HTTP task by default, so we need to open a shell into the container

docker exec -it domino /bin/bash

and from within the container then run "domino monitor" to access the server console to launch the http task using "load http"

Browsing to http:// will now show up this well known homepage.

For more information on how to work with Domino in Docker please refer to this documentation ( Thanks Roberto ! )

Finall word of warning:
Certainly this Zotac device produces some heat, so running a Domino server in your trousers will for sure turn them into hot pants for geeks - so please be careful !

Further ideas & todo:
- I have not done any stress testing, so please dont ask me how many users this device is going to support in production
- Enabling the embedded WiFi antenna and turning it into a WiFi hotspot would make a cool demo
- Zotac Pi 225 is not the smallest device that can run Domino -- I have some more ideas but getting hold of the hardware is more complicated, stay tuned for more :)

References:
- Zotac Pi 225 nano on Amazon
- Domino on Docker
- Domino on Docker Management Script
- Mike Rhodin announcing Lotus Foundations

Thomas Hampel

 23 June 2015
I am tired of printing email attachments. Yes, I still need to print some of them e.g. invoices for tax computation or travel reimbursement needs, or credit card balance sheets for archiving them offline.
Most of them are e-mails with PDF file attachments which I need to print on a regular basis. In order to print them I need to be at home, using a device with apropriate printer drivers installed and connected to my home network.
There must be a more simple method, so lets see how to allow mobile or remote printing.

What options do we have for remote printing?

• Google Cloud Print - would be the easiest option but who wants to forward personal data to Google?

Using web-connected printers like those from HP or EPSON or Canon, but my current printer(s) do work fine and I see no reason to replace them.
Furthermore any mail would be routed to the vendors environment which I dont trust.

• VPN - probably the best approach, but still requires printer drivers and VPN software to be installed.
  Since none of the options above satisfied my needs, lets see if we can build a solution ourselfes...maybe using a Raspberry Pi
  Main idea is to poll an IMAP account on a regular basis and if new mail will meet certain criteria then print the PDF file attachment.
  
  
  Step 1 - Preparations
  Obviously you need to buy a Raspberry PI, the Model B+ is enough. You also need some further equipment like a memory card, power adapter, keyboard, etc.
  Beside installing and configuring the operating system you need to:
  • Expand the file system
• Enable SSH
• Apply latest patches by running update and Upgrade
  
  $ sudo apt-get update -y && apt-get upgrade -y
• Install updates automatically by using apt-cron
  
  $ sudo apt-get install apt-cron
• Configure your network adapter preferably assign a static IP
• Change system locale and keyboard layout to fit your needs
• Don't forget to Change the default password
• When using a WiFi dongle disable WiFi Adapter Power Saving Mode
  Step 2 - Set up a new IMAP (or POP3) account
  Contact your provider for a description how to do that. Make sure your provider supports SSL/TLS connections and make sure to enable antivirus/antispam control for your IMAP account.
  Remark: SmartCloud Notes / Connections Cloud users need to enable IMAP access first (see details)
  
  Step 3 - Import SSL Root certificate(s)
  SSH into your Raspberry PI and start by creating a new directory for this project
  
  mkdir pimailprint
  cd pimailprint
   
  
  For verification of SSL certificates we would like to store SSL certificates of our mail provider locally, preferably in another subdirectory.
  
  mkdir sslcerts
  wget {url-of-provider certificate} -O ./sslcerts/provider-name.cer
  c_rehash ./sslcerts/
  
  
  You can verify the functionality using OpenSSL
  
  Step 4 - Install Prerequisites
  Install the required packages
  
  sudo apt-get install fetchmail procmail uudeview
  
  Create a configuration file for fetchmail, in our case the file will be located in the project directory instead of the users home folder.
  With this configuration I'm using procmail as mail delivery agent in order to further process the inbound mail.
  
  nano ./fetchmail.conf
  
  using this configuration:
  
  set no bouncemail
  poll IMAP.YOUR-DOMAIN.COM
  service 993
  protocol imap
  user "YOUR-USERNAME"
  password "YOUR-PASSWORD"
  ssl
  sslcertck
  sslproto TLS1
  no keep
  mda "/usr/bin/procmail -m './procmail.conf'"
  
  Change file permissions so only you can open and see the file.
  
  chmod 700 ./fetchmail.conf
  
  Create a configuration file for procmail...
  
  nano ./procmail.conf
  
  and use this configuration which will store mails that contain an attachment in the folder ./maildata
  
  MAIL_DIR=./maildata
  VERBOSE=off
  LOGFILE=./logs/printmail.log
  :0
  *^content-Type:
  $MAIL_DIR/
  
  
  Step 5 - Install and Configure CUPS
  CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) allows any computer to act as a print server.
  Just refer to this page for installation and configuration instructions
  Remark: Make sure to set this printer to be your default printer.
  Once completed you can manage the printer queue remotely using https://[ip-address-or-dns-name-of-your-raspberrypi]:631
  
  
  Step 4 - Build your Script
  Create a new shell script...
  
  touch ./printmail.sh
  chmod +x ./printmail.sh
  nano ./printmail.sh
  
  using the following code
  
  #!/bin/bash
  # Parameters
  BASEDIR=$(dirname $0)
  CURDIR=$(pwd)
  MAILDIR=./maildata
  LOGFILE=./logs/printmail.log
  ATTACH_DIR=./attachments
  # change directory
  echo "Switching directory to : $BASEDIR"
  cd $BASEDIR
  # create log file if it does not exist
  touch $LOGFILE
  date +%r-%-d/%-m/%-y >> $LOGFILE
  # fetch mail
  echo "Checking for new mail..."
  fetchmail -f ./fetchmail.conf -L $LOGFILE
  # process new mails
  shopt -s nullglob
  for i in $MAILDIR/new/*
  do
   echo "Processing : $i" | tee -a $LOGFILE
   uudeview $i -i -p $ATTACH_DIR/
  # process file attachments with space
    cd $ATTACH_DIR
    for e in ./*
        do
            mv "$e" "${e// /_}"
    done
    for f in *.PDF
        do
        mv $f ${f%.*}.pdf
    done
    cd $BASEDIR
  # end of patch
   echo "Printing PDFs" | tee -a $LOGFILE
   for x in $ATTACH_DIR/*.pdf
   do
           echo "Printing : $x" | tee -a $LOGFILE
           lpr $x
           echo "Deleting file : $x" | tee -a $LOGFILE
           rm $x | tee -a $LOGFILE
   done
   echo "Clean up and remove any other attachments"
   for y in $ATTACH_DIR/*
   do
           rm $y
   done
   # delete mail
   echo "Deleting mail : $i" | tee -a $LOGFILE
   rm $i | tee -a $LOGFILE
  done
  shopt -u nullglob
  echo "Job finished." | tee -a $LOGFILE
  cd $CURDIR
  
  
  Step 5 - Test and Scheduling
  in order to test the whole script, just run it :)
  
  ./printmail.sh
  To run it on a schedule, just add the whole path to crontab.
  
  crontab -e -u pi
  
  in my case it is enough to run this script once per hour, feel free to customize it to your needs
  
  @hourly  /home/pi/pimailprint/printmail.sh
  
  
  
  Results
  By forwarding a mail to a specific email address I can now print attachments automatically. Back home all the documents I wanted have already been printed or will be printed when switching on my printer and I can quickly process them further on, e.g. for claiming travel expenses back. In my case I am forwarding mails manually to a new account if I want to print them. Of course it is also possible to use mail rules for processing mails automatically.
  
  Enhancement requests / what needs to be done:
  • End to end encryption with S/MIME
• Reply to sender when print job has completed
• Define printer settings based on acronym in subject line
  Remark: Feel free to use this script at your own risk.

Thomas Hampel

 5 January 2015
Monitoring Domino servers via SNMP should be a simple task, if it would be documented properly.
There are quite a few blog posts out there on the internet such as this nice article by Detev Schuemann which unfortunately is in German.. So I'd like to provide an english translation with a few updates which in my opinion are valuable.

Background
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a protocol for monitoring network devices such as routers, switches, servers, printers and much much more.
Vendors of a device are providing a definition of values which can be read or modified in form of a MIB (Management Information Base). Those values are called OIDs (object identifiers) and are ordered in a hierarchical structure.

MIB definitions for Domino can be found online http://www.oidview.com/mibs/334/NOTES-MIB.html
A MIB file for IBM Domino can be found in the Domino program directory and is called "domino.mib"
On a Linux server the file can be found here /opt/ibm/domino/notes/latest/linux/domino.mib

Step-by-step Instructions
For each Domino server which you want to monitor, you need to enable SNMP support, the following is a step by step description of what you need to do for a Domino server on Linux. Instructions for Windows are available here
Examples below are based on CentOS which is using yum as package manager. For other Linux distributions commands are slightly different, also path references shown in the example below might not be the same for you.

Step 1 - SNMP Master Agent
Although Domino its own snmp master agent, I recommend not to use it because the version supplied with Domino is the rather dated version 5.0.7.
Currently version 5.7.3 is the latest version available. Check the net-snmp change log to see what has changed between versions.
Obviously you should prefer using the operating system snmp master agent which comes preinstalled for a number of Linux distributions.
If not already installed, you can install the package net-snmp with the following command.

# yum install net-snmp

The library net-snmp-utils provides some additional tools like snmpwalk, which we will need later on for testing functionality

# yum install net-snmp-utils

To check the version you are running...

$ snmpwalk --version

Note: Current releases of CentOS and Redhat provide net-snmp version 5.7.2 by default.

Option B - NET-SNMPD v5.0.7 provided by Domino
Domino provides net-snmpd in version 5.0.7  - again, I do not recommend using this version.
However, if really want to use it enter these commands to copy the required files to the /etc directory and make sure the service is started after a reboot.

Note that in this type of configuration your settings are stoed in the file  /etc/net-snmpd.conf

Step 2 - Update Configuration
Back up the original config file to a location of your choice

cp /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf /root

Edit the file /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf . Modifying this file is only required if you are using the master agent provided by your OS.

# nano /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

1.) Search for sysLocation and update it according to your needs as shown here:


2.) define a username/password combination for SNMP v3 authentication
Of course the user name and password used in this example are to be changed to fit your needs

createUser SNMPv3UserName MD5 SNMPUserSecretPassword AES

3.) At the end of the same file, add this line:

smuxpeer 1.3.6.1.4.1.334.72 NotesPasswd

Dont forget to save the file

Step 3 - SNMP Startup Script
Although you could add /usr/sbin/snmpd as a service directly, its probably more useful to use a startup script.
Domino already provides such a script - you just need to modify the configuration so that it can be used.


Update the configuration (starting in line 31) as follows:

Make sure the startup script runs at next boot


Step 4 - Update Firewall Rules
SNMP requires UDP port 161 to be accessible, so you need to open this port on the local firewall.
Do not forget to open this port on any other firewall on your network which is between the monitoring server and your Domino server


Step 3 - Testing basic functions
Test basic SNMP functionality from the local host and also from a remote server.

# snmpwalk -v3 -u SNMPv3UserName -A SNMPUserSecretPassword -a MD5 -l authnoPriv dominoserver.domain.com .1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.100.2.0

As a result you should get the version number of the SMTP master agent


Step 5 - Enable Domino SNMP Agent
Make sure LNSNMP will be started after a reboot. (Note: change the path to match your configuration!)

In case you get the error  "LOTUSDIR must be set in the environment or in this script." you need to update script so that it can find the path to your Domino server, e.g. LOTUSDIR=/opt/ibm/domino

if everything has worked out, starting the lnsnmp should provide the following output


Step 6 - Domino Tasks
Start the following tasks from the Domino server console

"quryset" is required to support SNMP queries
"intrcpt" is required to support SNMP traps for Domino events
"Collect" is required to support statistic threasold traps
Create a program document or add the tasks to the Notes.ini variable "ServerTasks=" so ensure they are started automatically after a server restart.

Step 7 - Testing Domino SNMP agent response
Now its time to test if we can access Domino objects via SNMP, e.g. by reading a single value.

$ snmpget -v3 -u SNMPv3UserName -A SNMPUserSecretPassword -a MD5 -l authnoPriv dominoserver.domain.com .1.3.6.1.4.1.334.72.1.1.6.2.1.0

Should return the fully qualified Domino Server name as a string


Ok, you're done... the Domino SNMP Agent is configured and can be used.
However, there still is some work to be done on your SNMP management console e.g. Nagios ,FAN , Cacti (or whatever you are using) in order to monitor Domino via SNMP (for example, server down).

Next Actions:
If you like this post, please let me know via Twitter @ThomasHampel or by leaving a comment below. Please note that comments are moderated and wont show up before being approved.
Hint... configuring Nagios for Domino monitoring and configuring Cacti for trend analysis is subject of another blog post which I'm already working on.

Troublshooting

• Check snmpd.log for errors
  # cat /var/log/snmpd.log
• Error : refused smux peer: oid SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.334.72, descr Lotus Notes Agent
  see IBM Technote 1313318
• Error - Unknown User
  Either a typo in the user name or you forgot to add the user to the snmpd.conf file in step 1, search the config file for something like this:
  createUser SNMPv3UserName MD5 SNMPUserSecretPassword AES
• Error in packet. Reason: authorizationError (access denied to that object)
  The user exists and the password worked, but does not have access rights required. Check snmpd.conf to see if you have granted at least read only rights, search the file for a string like this:
  rouser SNMPv3UserName

Tools:
Take a look at Paessler SMTP Tester (Freeware / Windows)


Further reading:

• How to set up Domino and SNMP in Windows
• IBM Domino MIB - Notes-MIB (v1) Tree

Thomas Hampel

 7 January 2014
Working with IBM Websphere 8.5.5 on Linux, in my case CentOS,  I ran into an issue where the Websphere Customization Toolbox did not start.
Trying to use the console command to start it ( /opt/IBM/WebSphere/Toolbox/WCT/wct.sh ) did not provide any further information about the problem.

So lets have a look into the recent logs

#tail /var/logs/messages

Which showed some warnings... :  [ warning] [Gtk] Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "clearlooks"

One suggestion to address this issue is to install gtk2-engines in a 32bit version, so lets try that....

# yum install gtk2-engines.i686

The next attempt to start the Toolkit brought more details, this time with a reference to a log file


Looking into this log file ( /root/.ibm/WebSphere/workspaces/WCT85/.metadata/.log  ) revealed a missing library.

java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Could not load SWT library. Reasons:
        /root/.ibm/WebSphere/configurations/WCT85/org.eclipse.osgi/bundles/45/1/.cp/libswt-pi-gtk-3659.so (libXtst.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)

Solution
Bottom line, the solution was to install those two packages

• # yum install gtk2-engines.i686
• # yum install libXtst.i686

Finally the Customization Toolbox started up and is working fine..

Thomas Hampel

 26 February 2012
A note to self... dont try to uninstall evolution from a CentOS 6.x installation because it will make break the gnome desktop.
for details see this bug report

beside the libraries listed, it seems like Gnome Display Manager (gdm) was uninstalled by mistake.
To fix this problem, just use
#yum install gdm

Thomas Hampel

 3 May 2011
Installing Lotus Notes on Linux is rather simple, the UI starts right away without any problems.
However if you happen to run command level operations such as compact or fixup you may run into problems because the following error message may appear:

"error while loading shared libraries: libnotes.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

Notes is complaining it can’t find libnotes.so which normally resides in the /usr/lib folder on your machine.
All you have to do is to create some links so that the Notes/Domino code can find this file

To do so you will have to be root or have sudo rights and execute the following commands
sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/lotus/notes/libnotes.so /usr/lib/libnotes.so
sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/lotus/notes/libndgts.so /usr/lib/libndgts.so
sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/lotus/notes/libxmlproc.so /usr/lib/libxmlproc.so

or if you want a more propper solution, use those commands (thanks to Brian for reminding me)

# Create the conf file and put into place
echo “/opt/ibm/lotus/notes” >/tmp/lotus-notes.conf
sudo install -m 644 /tmp/lotus-notes.conf /etc/ld.so.conf.d/

# Tell the linker to use it
sudo ldconfig

Note: Of course all these commands refer the the standard Notes client installation directories, which you may need to adjust to fit your installation.