Wednesday, March 30, 2011

How to configure Sametime embedded client remotely

I just posted this to the Sametime Community Forum and thought I would post it here too as it may be useful:

Information on how to configure your Sametime embedded client
Basically - I could never get the Domino policy and managed settings in there to work. I believe that with 8.5.x onwards the best way to control Sametime configuration is NOT with Domino policies but with the plugin_customization.ini file and managed-settings.xml

First thing is make sure the Sametime Community server is in your plugin_customization.ini file e.g.:
com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.community/host=sametime.wherever.com

Then, I used a manged-settings.xml file pointed to by this line in the plugin_customization.ini:
com.ibm.rcp.managedsettings.provider.file/URL=http://servername.com/sametime/managed-settings.xml
(the above file was on the Sametime server served up by Domino HTTP server but could be anywhere accessible to the client)
 and I had managed-settings.xml with all the com.ibm.rtc.meeting.shelf parameters in.

I actually added all my com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.community parameters into the plugin_customization.ini file and then any extra ones, like for meetings, I added to the managed-settings.xml

Also - BIG warning here - the parameters in plugin_customization.ini are case-sensitive... so as I found out to my cost: com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.community/loginAtStartup=true
works and:
com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.community/loginAtStartUp=true
does NOT work... (note the case of the u in startup)

Another BIG thing is that the plugin_customization.ini file doesn't get re-read at any time unless you delete the workspace... so in effect, there is no real way to "upgrade" apart from wacking the workspace. I tried deleting specific files in the workspace, like the community-config.xml and the Notes_Canonical_name.xml in subdirectories but I never got any solid results... as long as you don't mind losing the client settings that you lose when you delete the workspace, this would be the way to go... oh, and I deleted Cache.ndk for good measure too

And you need to stop and restart the Notes client a couple of times for this to work as the first time it pulls the changes from the plugin_customization.ini file and only gets the managed-settings.xml file the second time the client starts... so you won't see meetings until the second restart of the client

4 comments:

  1. That sounds scary! but I understand you had to do, what you had to do to get the job done.

    nice write up!

    -Tim E. Brown

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  2. Yeah - I know Tim.. it was scary... but in the end it worked relatively seamlessly with some Windows scripting on the desktop i.e. to replace the plugin_customization.ini and remove the workspace. The users were actually seamlessly transferred... it would be nice to know the exact files in the workspace to delete rather than wacking the whole thing....

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  3. OK - I just received a comment by email which didn't seem to get posted tot he blog directly, so I am adding it here:

    Regarding your BIG thing which seems to be only solved by deleting the workspace:

    You have to "reset" the communities to get the new values active:
    com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.login/resetUser=true

    But, if you have this setting in plugin_customization.ini, the user's communities get reset with every Notes start (as plugin_customization.ini gets read at every startup).

    To avoid this, you can use managed-settings.xml and define the values in this file. You have to put the managed-settings.xml on a central HTTP server for download. Finally add
    com.ibm.rcp.managedsettings.provider.file/URL=http://www.yourserver.com/managed-settings.xml


    Here are the steps described:
    http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sametime/v8r5/topic/com.ibm.help.sametime.v851.doc/config/config_client_pref_plugin.html

    Format of managed-settings.xml
    http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sametime/v8r5/topic/com.ibm.help.sametime.v851.doc/config/config_client_xml_file_plugin.html

    List of available client settings
    http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sametime/v8r5/topic/com.ibm.help.sametime.v851.doc/config/config_client_pref_tables.html

    Maik

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  4. In response to Maik, if you read my later blog posts and look at my presentation posted from PACLUG, you will see that I mention the new "com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.login/resetUser=true" option... in fact with ST V8.5.1.1 onwards, that is no longer an option and the user "reset" is done every time the Sametime client starts... in fact, it's less of a "reset" but rather more of a reread of the Plugin_customization.ini file... which of course allows for the configuration to be refreshed by changing that file (through network deployment means)

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