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Lotus Notes Connector

Overview

The Notes Connector provides access to Lotus Domino databases. 

The Lotus Notes Connector reads, writes and deletes records in any Notes database, and is therefore not limited to the Domino directory. Managing users in Lotus Notes requires modifying certificates, ACLs and their mailboxes. This must either be done manually or by using the "adminp" system tool. Users can be provisioned in and out of Notes by applying staging databases and integrating with adminp through Notes scripting.

Session Types

The following session types are supported IIOP, LocalClient or LocalServer.

IIOP

This was the only mode supported prior to version 1.7 of this Connector. It uses a TCP connection to the Domino server. The Connector uses HTTP and IIOP to access the Domino server, so you must make sure these services are started and accessible from the host where you are running this Connector.

LocalClient

This session type uses a local installation of Lotus Notes or Designer. The Connector uses the ID file in use by the local client. Requirements are that the Lotus provided NOTES.JAR (not the one in metamerge/jars/connectors)  file is in the Java CLASSPATH and that the local client binaries are in the PATH. The Notes.jar uses native calls (e.g. local client libraries) to access databases.  You must also remove the ncso.jar file found in metamerge/jars

With this session type the Username parameter (dominoLogin) is ignored. 

The Password (dominoPassword) must match the password in the ID file used or the local notes client will prompt for a password. Note that this is tricky when you for example run an AssemblyLine with standard input/output detached from the console. You should always try to run an AssemblyLine in a command line window to detect whether the local client is prompting for the password. Testing shows that the local client almost ignores the (correct) Password parameter and always prompts for a password. One way of making sure the prompt is avoided is to start the notes/designer client, go to the File|Tools|UserID menu and check "Don't prompt for a password for other Notes programs"

LocalServer

Same as for LocalClient but uses the local Domino server installation. One difference is that you can specify a valid Username and matching Password.

 

Connecting 

The Connector uses IIOP to communicate with a Domino server. To establish an IIOP session with a Domino server, the Connector needs the IOR string that locates the IIOP process on the server. 

When you configure the Connector you specify a hostname and optionally a port number where the server is located. This hostname:port string is in reality the address to the Domino server's http service from which the Connector retrieves the IOR string. The IOR string is then used to create the IIOP session with the server's IIOP service (diiop). Hence, the need for the http service is only for the discovery of the IOR string. This operation is very simple: the Connector requests a document called "/diiop_ior.txt" from the domino http server that is expected to contain the IOR string. You can replace the hostname:port specification with this string and thus bypass the first step and also the dependency of the http server . The diio_ior.txt file is typically located in the data/domino/html subdirectory in your domino server installation directory. Check the Web configuration in the Lotus Administrator for the exact location. 

To verify the first step point your browser at http://hostname:port/dioop_ior.txt where hostname:port is the hostname and port number of your domino server. You should receive a document that says IOR:<a bunch of numbers …>. If you get a similar response to this the first step is verified. If this fails you should check both the HTTP configuration on the server that it allows anonymous access and also verify that the process itself is running.

Configuration

The Connector needs the following parameters:

Parameter

Description

alwaysUseFormula This flag has meaning when you are not using a View and the database you access is full-text indexed. Previous to version 1.7 of the Connector, the Notes Connector would only use full-text searches when a View was used. From 1.7 the Connector checks if the database is full-text indexed and uses full-text searches instead of Formula statements if the database is full-text indexed. If you check this flag the Connector will use Formula statements regardless of whether the database is indexed or not. When a view is specified, full-text searches are always used because Views does not support Formula search statements.
connectorType com.architech.connector.rscNotes
dominoLogin The username to use for authentication against the server. Ignored if you use Session type LocalClient
dominoPassword The password to use.
dominoHost The IP hostname or address to the domino server.
dominoSessionType Can be one of IIOP, LocalClient or LocalServer. See the discussions on Session Types above.
iiopSSL Checking this flag causes the Connector to request an encrypted IIOP connection. (This flag has only meaning when the session type is IIOP). 

One of the requirements for using SSL is that the TrustedCerts.class file that (according to the Domino toolkit) is generated every time the DIIOP process starts must be in the classpath. You must either copy the TrustedCerts.class to a local path included in the CLASSPATH or have the \Lotus\Domino\Data\Domino\Java of your Domino installation in the classpath. 

notesDatabase The name of the database to use
notesSelection The selection used when iterating the data source. You must use valid Lotus Notes select statements. To select entries from the name & address book use the following select statement:
Select Form="Person" 
notesServer The name of the server where notesDatabase is found. Leave blank to use the server you are connecting to (dominoHost).
notesSearchView The database view to use.

Security

In order to have the Integrator access your Domino server, you might have to allow it through Domino Administrator -> Security -> IIOP restriction . The user account you have configured the Integrator to use, must belong to a group listed under Run restricted Java/Javascript and Run unrestricted Java/Javascript

The Domino Web server has to be configured for allowing anonymous access.  If not, the current version of the Connector will not to be able to connect to the Domino IIOP server.

 Downloads

Download Notes.jar and replace the Notes.jar that came with Metamerge.  You will find it in the jars/connectors directory.

 

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  Metamerge Integrator version 4.6 ©Copyright Metamerge AS 2000-2002 Last edited 2002-06-10 contact us