This page originally found at http://www.dominopower.com/issues/issue199911/linux001.html

When Lotus placed their Sneak Preview (SPI) of Domino for Linux on Notes.Net in August of this year, I’m sure even they were surprised that 50,000 people chose to download it — considering each download was a non-trivial 130MB. This gives some indication of the scale of the interest in Linux, both as an alternative platform in its own right and as a platform for Domino.

Recently, at Lotusphere ’99 in Berlin, Lotus announced the second release of the software, Sneak Preview II (SPII), which has fixed several of the problems associated with the initial version. What scares many people away from taking the plunge and trying SPII out is the steep learning curve associated with Linux, especially if your interest is Domino-on-the-platform rather than the platform itself. This article shows you how to install and setup SPII on a spare PC in less than one hour, with no Linux knowledge. From there you can explore and decide whether you want to invest further time in learning Linux as a Domino platform. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Of course, if you’re already a Linux wizard, you’re already halfway home.

Things you need to have first

Since you don’t get the Notes/Domino client or administration software with SPII, you are obliged to have at least two PCs available and connected via TCP/IP: one with the client and administrator installed, the other the target for Linux.

Moving on, the target box must be a Pentium class machine with at least 64 MB of RAM (128 MB is recommended) and 1 GB of disk storage. We used a retired P200 workstation with a 2 GB disk and upgraded it to 96 MB of RAM.

On the software side you need a copy of a Linux distribution. RedHat 6.0 works out of the box so this is a good choice if you don’t have a strong opinion either way. We used Mandrake Linux, which is based on RedHat 6.0, from The Linux Emporium (at http://www.linux-emporium.co.uk/). This distribution costs the princely sum of £2 or US$3.25 (CD only).

You also need a copy of the Notes/Domino server software, either downloaded as a tar file from Notes.Net or on CD from Lotus. If you download it and you don’t have a fast link, you might find it drops out on you halfway. A tip here is to have a word with your local ISP and see if they’ll do it for you for a nominal fee. Another idea is to install GetRight (available from http://getright.com/). This nifty program is quite stubborn about downloads — it restores failed downloads and keeps working at it until the entire file is on your hard drive.

Installing Linux (20 minutes)

First off, if you haven’t already, install Linux on your target PC. I’ve outlined the main points below:

• If you can’t boot from CD, create a boot floppy (see installation documents).
• Boot the soon-to-be Linux box and, when asked, choose “Server” as the installation option, it will then install all the appropriate software.
• Set up the network as you would in Windows, i.e. IP address, etc. I include this as a single bullet item, but assume there will be some poking around the system before you get this right. Once you can ping the box, you’ll know you succeeded.
• Set up X-Windows, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect. Say No to the “Start Automatically” question.
• When asked for an “ordinary user” name, choose “notes”. You’ll need this for the Domino installation later on.
• When the PC reboots, log in as “root”.
• Type “setup” and disable the http task in “System Services” if you want to use the http task in Domino instead of Apache (Apache, a popular Web server, launches by default in most Linux releases).
• Once you restart the PC by typing “shutdown -r now”, you’re done.

Installing Domino (40 minutes)

I’ll assume you have the Domino software on CD. If you don’t, you’ll want to transfer the software to the Linux box. You can do this using FTP or Samba (see “Sharing Linux drives with Samba”, elsewhere in this issue).

Let’s install Domino on your Linux box:

• Place the CD in the drive and log in as root if you haven’t already done so. Make sure you’ve got your cursor at a shell prompt. If you’re in X-Windows or some other shell, you can launch a Shell tool, or quite to the basic command-line shell.
• Type “mount /dev/cdrom” to mount the CD. You should hear it spin up.
• Type “df” to get a list of partitions and how much space is available in each. By default, the install tries to put the program and data in /opt/lotus and /local/notesdata respectively. The listing below shows what partitions are in what directory trees and in our case this would mean cramming both partitions into 136 MB.

Filesystem	Size	Used	Avail	Use%	Mounted on
/dev/hda8	250M	100M	136M	42%	/
/dev/hda1	17M	782k	15M	5%	/boot
/dev/hda6	638M	165M	440M	27%	/home
/dev/hda5	638M	275M	330M	46%	/usr
/dev/hda7	250M	6.3M	230M	3%	/var

• From the list we could see that /home/notesdata would be better for the Notes data in order to have enough room for some databases.
• From the prompt type “/mnt/cdrom/linux/install” and follow the prompts to install the software. Notice that the “notes” user you created earlier will own the software.
• Once the installation is complete, logout as “root” and then log back in as “notes”.
• Change to your notes data directory. In other words, type “cd /home/notesdata” or “cd /local/notesdata” if you installed into the default directory.
• Now type “/opt/lotus/bin/http httpsetup.” When the program starts starts, go to your other PC, start up your Web browser and open the URL http://<linux_box_ip_address>:8081. (Of course, replace <linux_box_ip_address> with the actual IP number). You should get the Domino server Setup screen that we’re all familiar with. Set up the server as usual.
• If created, the Cert.ID and Server.ID will have been placed in the Notes data directory. Your Admin user ID will have been attached to your document in Names.NSF
• Once set up, go back to the Linux server and type “/opt/lotus/bin/server” and watch it start up. Note you don’t get the “>” prompt on the console but don’t worry, you can just type commands as normal.
• If you didn’t choose to have Domino start the http task automatically, then type “start http” at the console. Next, use your browser to open http://<linux_box_ip_address>:8081/names.nsf and detach the user ID from your document.

The “:8081″ syntax is a special case that allows you to set up the server over the Web by running the http task in this special “standalone” mode. Once the server is set up the http task is just loaded like any other task (usually automatically) and takes no parameters.

The Apache Web server is the default in Linux as IIS is on NT. You can choose to disable Apache (as I suggest in a previous section) or move the port number Domino uses to something else, say :8080, using the Administrator. In fact the latter is often the preferred mode, as many people looking at Domino want to take advantage of the good things in Apache and forwarding appropriate .NSF requests to Domino (in the same way that people use the IIS/Domino combination in Windows).

Now you can switch to this ID and use your Client and Administrator as normal from your PC.

Congratulations, you’re done!

Conclusion

I hope this has given you the confidence to try out Domino on Linux. Although it’s complicated by the Windows standard, the reliability is very high and the cost negligible. Linux is set to grow as a server choice that can only be good for the Domino market. All in all, it’s a platform worth getting to know.

• Product availability and resourcesThe Notes.Net site is the primary site for the downloadable software and a good discussion group with support issues and porting information to other flavors of Linux at \http://www.notes.net/linux (you’ll have to register).
• Mandrake and other flavors of Linux are available from the Linux Emporium at http://www.linux-emporium.co.uk/.
• GetRight is available from http://getright.com. Mark Lawson is MD of Electric Memo Ltd., who specialize in Lotus Notes solutions. He can be reached at markl@electricmemo.com

Organizations always want to accomplish more. They want to reliably deliver information their customers need around the clock. Easily manage their entire infrastructure from a single point. Increase employee productivity. Communicate and collaborate in realtime. All with less effort, lower costs and fewer resources. Now you can take full advantage of the administration and performance power of IBM Lotus® Domino server to make it easier to manage the complexities of your business. Lotus Domino offers robust tools that can simplify your management tasks and increase performance and uptime. Achieve better administrative control with tools like policies, archiving, quota management and SPAM filtering. And smoothly evolve your Lotus messaging solutions to meet marketplace demands.
Easily migrate to Lotus Domino

Lotus Domino can coexist with the systems you already have for as long as you need it to. Whether you’re upgrading from an earlier Lotus Domino release or migrating from a competitive platform, Lotus Domino and your existing system can work together. Key system databases, such as the Domino Directory, are designed for backward compatibility to allow Domino and older Domino systems to coexist — helping facilitate a smooth upgrade. And because Lotus Domino supports standards like Native Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), Post Office Protocol (POP3), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), you don’t have to implement infrastructure changes to successfully deploy Lotus Domino . Since its inception, backward compatibility has been a core design feature of Domino server. This continues with Domino , preserving your existing investment in Domino. There is no need for you to completely change your infrastructure to keep your business running.

Key Features and Benefits

* Helps increase your system’s availability with advanced reliability and security features
* Saves time by letting you update your client environment centrally with low-touch deployment
* Simplifies administration and saves time by letting you centrally manage user configurations for individuals, groups or even an entire organization
* Centralizes directory resources for more control with less overhead
* Reduces costs and eases administration by supporting multiple organizations and languages on one Domino server
* Helps maximize uptime with enhancements that enable sophisticated data collection and faster server restarts
* Helps keep your users productive and connected with improved clustering, formula engine, full-text searching, network compression and replication
* Provides interoperability with your existing application servers, such as Domino R5 server, WebSphere server, Sametime 3 server and QuickPlace server

Notes

As an integrated collaborative environment, Lotus Notes combines enterprise-class messaging and calendaring & scheduling capabilities with a platform for collaborative applications. With Lotus Notes , we have focused on improving features and adding more functionality without materially altering the Lotus Notes user interface. This approach is geared toward improved productivity for Lotus Notes users without requiring companies to retrain users. The proven messaging and collaboration engine remains at the core of Notes, and Lotus Notes makes it easier to use, easier to customize, more flexible, and simpler to deploy and administer.

IBM Lotus Notes integrates your highest-priority information resources — e-mail, calendaring and scheduling, journal, to-do lists, Web pages, databases — all within a proven, reliable messaging environment. Enhancements with this release offer more customization options, such as color-coding e-mails and calendar entries, rearranging columns, changing sort order and selecting your favorite calendar view. Improved attachment handling and selective replication mean Notes users have more flexibility to access, process and manage information, while saving on storage space. These enhancements, built on existing Notes functionality, mean users can increase productivity without any training.

Calendaring and scheduling functionality is significantly improved in Notes , with emphasis on increasing user productivity by allowing users to perform more actions directly in the calendar view. An improved scheduling form allows users to complete one comprehensive, easy-to-use form that neatly captures the many details required when scheduling meetings, appointments or reminders. Additional enhancements provide administrative assistants more management tools to create meeting invitations and view calendar details for one or more executives.

With Lotus Notes , many tasks execute in the background — reducing wait time and helping to increase end-user productivity and satisfaction. Users can detach documents, poll for new mail, replicate and queue print jobs — all while performing other important tasks. Background replication and the ability to selectively replicate databases, documents, views or folders supports user multitasking and increases network efficiency. The Lotus Notes client also leverages the benefits of streamlined management and administration capabilities in IBM Lotus Domino by centralizing management of many client settings like security settings, desktop settings and archiving.

Highlights of Notes

• Integrates your most valuable messaging, collaborative and personal information management (PIM) resources — like e-mail, calendar, to-do list — to allow users to access them while connected with or disconnected from your network
• Includes hundreds of enhancements to increase ease-of-use, including background attachment handling, multi-user support and customization options
• Provides industry-leading calendaring and scheduling functionality, which let users easily collaborate and schedule meetings with colleagues across the world
• Helps reduce total cost of ownership with minimal training, end user productivity enhancements and built-in management and administration functionality

Introducing Lotus Notes

Lotus Notes continues to set the standard for innovation in the messaging and collaboration market Lotus defined over a decade ago. As an integrated collaborative environment, Lotus Notes combines enterprise-class messaging and calendaring & scheduling capabilities with a robust platform for collaborative applications. Take advantage of the advanced functionality, reliable performance and dependable security – and help reduce your total cost of ownership in the process.

Introducing Lotus Domino

Lotus Domino Family of Servers provide a multi-platform foundation for collaboration and e-business, driving solutions from corporate messaging to Web based transactions and everything in between.

IBM Lotus Domino server offers robust tools that can simplify your system management tasks and increase network performance and uptime. Achieve better administrative control with tools like policies, archiving, quota management and SPAM filtering. And smoothly evolve your Lotus messaging solutions to meet marketplace demands.

IBM’s Product Line

Companies use Notes successfully for:

• Application support request tracking
• Applications that are updated frequently
• Applications that need to be deployed on a variety of hardware or operating system clients or servers
• Applications that need to store and mix rich text, graphics, sound, video, other OLE objects
• Applications where access security is important
• Audits
• Bulletin boards*
• Business placement in brokerage firms
• Business Redesign Discussions
• Call Reporting
• Change Management
• Combining information from various sources to aid in investment
• Decision making
• Communication and work across time zones
• Company-wide announcements*
• Compensation and Benefits management
• Controlled Interchange with Internet Usenet Newsgroups
• Corporate Phone Directory
• Correspondence Management
• Customer Support
• Data Warehousing (mid-size organizations)
• Directories*
• Disaster planning and recovery
• Distributing any unstructured information that can’t be defined easily ahead of time
• Documentation/reference checkout tracking
• Electronic Forms and Forms routing
• Electronic job postings
• Electronic Mail within an Organization
• Employee reference guides*
• Empowering the mobile worker
• Executive Information Systems
• Expense Reporting
• External provider information
• Fax: Outbound/Inbound/Fax Back
• Flexible Benefits Enrollment (also done using Phone Notes)
• General discussions
• Group Information Manager
• Group Scheduling
• Help Desk
• Hotel Lists
• Human Resources/Employee Tracking
• Insurance Claim Processing
• Inter-organization Applications and Mail Exchange
• Internet Mail Gateway
• Investment Applications
• IP address tracking (easier to manage IP address than using Domain Naming Services)
• IS tip sharing
• Job requisition submission and tracking
• Knowledgebases
• Legal Case Tracking
• Library catalog
• Library Periodical Tracking
• Loan Approval
• Medical Record Imaging
• Medical/Patient Case Management
• Meeting Minutes
• New account/customer setup and tracking
• News warehouses
• Outside counsel (including direct exchange via Notes with those providers) Performance management
• Personal Information Manager
• Planning Discussions
• Police Tracking of Criminals
• Presentation databases
• Problem/Incident Tracking
• Procedures*
• Product and service catalogs
• Product Development
• Project Management
• Public Relations Tracking
• Publishing Information onto the WWW
• Purchase order systems
• Rapid delivery of applications and interactive prototypes
• RealTime desktop-desktop collaboration using Intel ProShare
• Resume and Applicant tracking
• Rolodex
• Sales and Lead Tracking
• Sales and Marketing databases
• Sales brochure ordering (Minnesota Mutual uses this to let agents order marketing materials)
• Securities Agent Licensing
• Sick leave tracking
• Simple-Moderate Workflow applications
• Skills matching and succession management
• Software documentation
• Software Inventory
• Speech tracking (The Met keeps all of the executive’s speeches in Notes)
• Standards*
• Status Reports
• Stock purchase request tracking
• Supply order tracking
• Surveys coupled with an internal discussion area
• Technology discussions
• Time Sheet Reporting
• To-Do lists
• Tracking sales activity
• Tracking staff availability
• Training management and registration
• Travel Itineraries
• Underwriter evaluation for assessing the quality of risks
• Underwriting
• Underwriting guidelines
• Underwriting inspection report requests, delivered directly to the service via Notes
• Vacation tracking

* During research, these applications were also identified as suitable for successful delivery via an Intranet.

Companies shouldn’t use Notes for:

• Accounting/Finance
• Accounts Payable
• Applications that need a lot of number crunching
• Applications that require record locking
• Applications with many data fields to fill in
• Complex contact management and scheduling
• Desktop Publishing
• Enterprise-wide billing systems
• Heavy reporting applications
• High volume transaction-based applications, which are typically done using CICS and relational databases
• Payment processing and application
• Payroll
• High volume point of sale applications
• Realtime inventory management
• Room scheduling (only true for Notes 3.x, Notes 5+ includes room and resource scheduling)
• Very advanced or complicated workflow (only true for Notes 3.x, Notes 5+ works well for complicated workflow)

For web applications, rather than a relational database such as an Access, Oracle, or DB2 database being accessed via scripting methods such as PERL, PHP, ColdFusion or other CGI executables the Domino server and databases are an integrated platform. The back end code is contained in the same file as the data and executed directly by the Domino server. This allows for greater security and flexibility at a fraction of conventional development and application licensing costs. No only that, but the Domino server is cross-platform, scalable, and also performs numerous other Internet services including SMTP, MAP, LDAP, NNTP, POP3, as well as other more complex services and applications (and you can set up Domino to run those old CGI scripts, too).

From an IT management and cost of ownership point of view, imagine consolidating the functions performed by that expensive Oracle server, your Exchange Server (Outlook 98/2000 is even supported as a mail client by Domino), your web server, your corporate CRM system, and more than likely a few other systems in your organization into one centrally managed application with one set of client licenses (third party Notes/Domino applications may require additional licensing), all running on the hardware and OS of your choice.

But in either case you don’t need to toss out your old applications to start using Domino. There are nearly endless ways that Domino can coexist with other products either permanently or during a transition. Domino is powerful stuff! Call us today at (604) 788-9336 or email info@mbarrick.com to find out more.

The following explains in some details the basic similarities and differences between Domino and a conventional relational database.

3.4.1 Domino database concept

A Domino database is a collection of related information stored in a single file. A Domino application uses at least one database. A database holds information about its design as well as data. Domino data is organized as documents. A document is defined as an object containing text, graphics, video, or audio objects, or any other kind of rich text data.

Domino databases contain documents, as opposed to relational databases, which contain tables. Unstructured or structured data, as well as associated programming logic, are stored within the database.

Domino databases are essentially a complete application with its associated data. They contain all of the forms, views, agents, fields, and code required to store and manage data. The databases can reside on a Domino server or Lotus Notes workstation.

There are many design features that are available for Domino databases.We will evaluate the forms and views as the main design element that we are concerned with in this project.

3.4.1.1 Form

The form is the skeleton provided to users to enable them to enter data, either by typing or by using other control buttons. A form can also be thought of as an abstract structure of a document. It defines all the fields and its type for a document. There is at least one form in a database, although a typical business application will have many forms, each targeted to the type of information that the user wants to save in the database.

The form contains all the design elements: Fields to store the user’s information, static text, buttons, sections, images, and subforms that help the user enter the data into the database.

3.4.1.2 View

A view shows a list of documents stored in a Domino database and can be thought of as a table of contents of a database. Views provide a means to organize documents in a database to be presented to the users or a program. Each row listed in a view represents data taken from a single document. Each column represents a field or a result of a formula taken from that document.

Domino databases have at least one view, but most of them have more. A view can display all the documents in the database, or it can display a subset of the documents. Views can present documents sorted on different fields, for example, sorted by topic, creation date, or author.

3.4.1.3 Documents

A Domino document is a container for data and is similar to a row in a database management system (DBMS). Each document is a collection of fields. A unique identifier is given to each document upon its creation and is used by the Domino database as a primary key.

A document’s design is held within a Domino form, which specifies what a document can contain in each field, for example, a form number, a date, text, or rich text.

(IBM Redbooks, “Linux Web Hosting with WebSphere, DB2, and Domino” PP 70-71)