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| Domino Server 4.6: Overview | |  | |
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Lotus Domino 4.6 expands the server's support of open Internet standards, Web application development, and ease of server administration. This article catalogs the major features in each of these categories. Lotus Domino 4.6 unveils the server's expanded support of open Internet standards as well as improvements for developing Web applications and making the server easier to use. The main features include:
The Domino server is available in two configurations: the Lotus Domino 4.6 Mail server, a complete messaging server, and the full Domino server, which combines the messaging functionality of the Domino Mail server with the power of Internet and intranet application development. Although you can use any Notes client with the Domino 4.6 server, you can only access the full Web application design capabilities from the Notes Designer for Domino 4.6 client. Support for Internet standards SMTP and MIME
support To implement these protocols, Domino includes the SMTP/MIME Message Transfer Agent (MTA). Available as a separate component in Release 4.5, the SMTP/MIME MTA is now fully integrated with Domino 4.6, and can be easily configured during the new server setup. POP3 and IMAP
support In contrast, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) allows for clients to access and manipulate mail messages on a server. Among other things, IMAP includes operations for creating, deleting, and renaming remote message folders, called "mailboxes." With Domino 4.6, you can use any IMAP client to access your mail. Notes folders appear as IMAP mailboxes, and vice versa. Common IMAP clients include Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, Netscape Communicator 4.0, and the future Notes 5.0 client. To access this feature, users must upgrade their mail file with the MAIL46.NTF template, and the file must be explicitly enabled for IMAP use. The following screens show how Domino-based IMAP mail appears when accessed from Netscape Communicator. The first screen shows the IMAP mailboxes, and the second screen shows how mail appears within the Inbox. Figure 1. Domino-based IMAP mail in Netscape Communicator Figure 2. IMAP Inbox in Netscape Both POP3 and IMAP rely on the SMTP/MIME MTA for transferring messages. A new feature in Domino 4.6 is to allow these messages to route through the Notes infrastructure without losing their original MIME format. To do this, Domino 4.6 provides flexibility in the ways that e-mail messages are stored, allowing the system to be configured for the best performance and message fidelity. Using the new "Internet message storage" field in their Person documents in the Public Address Book, users can specify to convert Internet messages to Notes format, to both convert messages to Notes format and retain the original Internet message, or to store the Internet format only. The Notes format offers the best performance for Notes users, and the Internet Mail format offers the best performance for POP3 and IMAP users, because the full fidelity of the MIME message is retained. The POP3 or IMAP client retrieves the original MIME/HTML message. This also allows the client to retrieve messages that were encrypted with Internet encryption, like S/MIME. The following screen shows a message with both the Notes format and an attachment containing the original MIME message. Figure 3. Notes message with MIME attachment LDAP support The following screen shows a directory search of the Domino Public Address Book from Netscape Communicator. Figure 4. LDAP Search dialog box NNTP support The following screens show a Domino NNTP server accessed from Netscape Communicator, and how a newsgroup discussion appears on the Notes client. Figure 5. Domino-based NNTP server accessed in Netscape Communicator Figure 6. Newsgroup discussion in the Notes client Enhancements for "Working the Web" In addition to its own security model, Domino uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 3.0 to encrypt and protect transactions between Internet users and Domino servers. Domino can validate X.509 client certificates, typically stored in a user's browser and transmitted during the initial SSL handshake with a server. Also, Domino can act as a Certifying Authority (CA), so you can add security to internal intranet applications and handle certificate requests from Domino server administrators within your company. (A CA issues certificates that are used during SSL transactions to verify the identity of servers and clients.) For developing interactive applications, Domino 4.6 improves how clickable form elements, such as buttons, action hotspots, and embedded navigators, are handled for Web users. Basically, forms delivered through the HTTP server behave more like forms in Notes -- formulas behind the clickable elements are evaluated when a user actually clicks on them, rather than when the document is displayed. Now, you can add multiple submit buttons to a form, create buttons from images, add side-effects to a button (like setting fields in documents), and include regions in navigators that can submit documents. Much of this new functionality can only work properly from a JavaScript browser, so you can specify if a database is JavaScript-enabled via a checkbox in the database properties pane. (The button behavior from earlier releases of Domino is still supported.) Figure 7. Sample form with multiple buttons As another plus for application developers, Domino 4.6 includes support for agents written in Java as well as in LotusScript. You can now use the Notes Java interface to manipulate all the same back-end classes as you currently have in LotusScript. This means that Java agents can access Notes databases directly using the Notes Java classes. The Java agents must run on a machine where Notes is installed, and run only within a Notes-supplied Java runtime. Other major enhancements for developing applications include: agent enhancements that allow you to run agents on any server and control agent execution privileges; new LotusScript classes for font styles; and support for folder references in NSF (to allow users to determine what folders, if any, a document is in, given only the document itself as a starting point). Easier setup and administration One result was the new server setup database, which according to Thomas, targets people who are new to Notes and don't yet understand all the concepts. (Even so, the streamlined setup may also prove useful to more experienced users.) The first time you try to start Domino 4.6, you'll encounter the server setup database. The database guides you through the setup process, giving you hints for naming things, enabling multiple network ports that are available, setting up the SMTP MTA, and enabling other server tasks, such as HTTP, NNTP, and so on. If you're a new user, you can choose to do a "Quick and Easy Setup" to simply choose the capabilities of the server and use default settings; or if you're more experienced, you can use "Advanced Setup" to specify the exact settings for your server. Figure 8. Domino server setup screen If an error occurs during the server setup, you are brought back to the setup database so you can correct a setting. (Previous releases required you to re-start the entire setup.) In addition, the configuration document is saved in the database so you can reference it later. You can also directly launch the server or register users for the server from the setup database. After setting up a new Domino server, the first time you start the server, statistic and event monitors will be automatically generated. These monitors will alert you to abnormal conditions on the server. Another tool for new users is the Web-based server administration database, which lets you administer your server using a browser. The tool targets users that are comfortable working in a browser (like Webmasters) and presents information in a graphical format. You can use the Web administration tool to do many common administration tasks, ranging from monitoring mail and server statistics to managing users, groups, and database access control lists (ACLs). The server you administer must be set up as a Web server, running the HTTP server task. After making sure that you're listed in the database ACL as a manager, you can access the Web administration tool by typing the following URL into a browser: http:// servername /webadmin.nsfwhere servername is the name of the Web server you want to administer (for example, http://myserver.company.com/webadmin.nsf). The Web administration tool prompts you for a name and HTTP password (specified in your Person document), and then opens to its home page. Figure 9. Domino Web administration tool Additional ease-of-use features in Domino 4.6 include an administration-only client that simplifies the user interface for server administrators, and more integration with the Windows NT User Manager. For example, you can now add and delete groups between Windows NT and Notes, register non-Notes users (such as Internet mail users) from Windows NT, and synchronize the Internet password with the Windows NT and/or Notes passwords. You can create a Notes group from a new or existing Windows NT group account, with the option of registering the group members as Notes users. If the Windows NT group contains other global groups as group members, you can also add these global groups to Notes, with the same option of registering their user members. For administrators who have not used the Windows NT directory synchronization features before, existing Windows NT users can be initially "synched" with Notes users to facilitate future synchronization operations, such as deleting and renaming users. For more information on using the Windows NT features, please access the Notes User Manager help file by choosing Help - Notes from within the Windows NT User Manager. The Future Copyright 1997 Iris Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
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