IBM Connections: wsadmin commands in batchfiles or shell-scripts

If you want to generate more complex jython scripts to be executed on IBM Connections environments you will recognize that you allways have to draw the decision on which server this should be executed. If you have an easy infrastructure you will be prompted to choose either 1 or 2.

This will work if you use wsadmin in commandline mode. But if you start to generate your own jython scripts you might want to execute them without being prompted. The most easiest way to solve this is to start your script with a variable.

Example:

import sys

batchMode=1;execfile("communitiesAdmin.py")

.......

The batchMode Variable predefines the serverdecision and you will no longer been prompted. Be aware that the name of the variable is case sensitive.

Have fun

Domino 2018 And Beyond

Very good news yesterday from big blue.

IBM announced yesterday their strategic partnership with HCL Technologies to develop the future of Domino, Verse, Notes and Sametime. This partnership will lead into a Version 10 of Notes and Domino next year and a roadmap for the future.

Read the announcent of IBM

IBM invites all customers, users and business partners to join the

Domino 2025 Jam

to create a roadmap for future development around the platforms. If you want to join just click here

MacOS X High Sierra and X11 Forwarding using SSH

After installation of High Sierra we recognized that a ssh connection to other systems show up a warning:

Warning: untrusted X11 forwarding setup failed: xauth key data not generated.

This happens when you installed the latest release from XQuartz 2.7.11 during the last year or so. It seems that the installation of High Sierra replace a couple of files even if they are related and needed by other applications - like XQuartz. To solve this issue just reinstall XQuartz 2.7.11.

Update Nextcloud 11 to Version 12

There are some circumstances that makes an update from Nextcloud 11 to Nextcloud 12 more complicated than it was before. In our case we are and were not able to execute the necessary shell commands because php-cli is not implemented by our provider. We also tried to update it using a fresh side-by-side installation, copy the config files to the new installation and choose the updater from the webbrowser. This procedure worked in all prior releases like a charm.

The new release brings a lot benfits. One very important one: Installed Apps in Nextcloud will not be lost, they will be updated during the upgrade process. This benefit brought some difficulties to us. We were not able update our sandbox and qa environment because the update of the apps needed a too large amount of time. The process ran into a timeout and broke the entire installation.

The solution for this issue is to deactivate all installed apps, run the side-by-side installation of Nextcloud 12 (including copy of the config files) and manually activate the apps after the upgrade was successful (which it was). This process was pretty easy: After the successful update all apps could be easily reactivated (and updated in place) in the Apps menu which needed just twenty minutes. There was only one app that could not be reactivated because it was not compatible with version 12.

Updating the Searchindex in IBM Connections

If your company works with IBM Connections you might have recognized that searching is one of the big benefits using your social media network. A specialized task is responsible for the abilty to search. This task will update the searchindex frequently, eg every 15 Minutes.

From time to time you might need to rebuild the index for one or for all components of Connections. This process is a bit complicated, timeconsuming and boring because you might monitor this process during several DAYS to rebuild everything. Because of this it is a good idea to write some scripts to automatically rebuild the index.

Here is a checklist for rebuilding the index:

1. Deactivate regular index service
2. Start Jython script to rebuild the needed index