UpgradingUse this documentation to upgrade the existing Domino® server and subsequently upgrade the Notes® client to a new release. You can also upgrade additional clients such as Domino Administrator and Domino Designer clients and additional features and plug-ins such as the embedded HCL Sametime® client.
Planning server-to-server connectionsServers must connect to each other to exchange data, for example to replicate databases and exchange mail. You can create connections between servers across a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN), by using a pass-through server (a server that acts as an intermediary server between a client and its destination), or over the Internet. Create a Server Connection document whenever you need to establish any new or additional server connections. You can modify this document when necessary.
Planning a mail routing topologyHCL Domino® offers you considerable flexibility in configuring your mail system infrastructure, allowing you to use HCL Notes® routing, SMTP routing, or both, for internal and external messages.
Planning a clusterWhen planning a cluster, it is important to consider the performance and ability of your hardware. The cluster must have enough CPU power, memory, and disk space to handle the cluster traffic and the number of databases and replicas required.
Planning the TCP/IP networkThe default TCP/IP configuration for an HCL Domino® server is one IP address that is globally bound, meaning that the server listens for connections at the IP addresses of all NICs on the computer. Global binding works as long as the computer does not have more than one IP address offering a service over the same assigned TCP port.
Messaging overviewThe HCL Domino® mail system has three basic components: Domino mail servers, Domino mail files, and mail clients. The Domino mail server is the backbone of an organization's messaging infrastructure, acting both as an Internet mail server and an HCL Notes® mail server. Domino provides standards-based Internet messaging through its support of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). At the same time, Domino supports Notes mail through the use of Notes routing protocols -- Notes remote procedure calls (NRPC) -- and the Notes rich text message format.
Planning securityAn important aspect of planning security for your Domino® environment is understanding the tasks and features involved with securing each type of resource.
ConfiguringUse this information to configure your network, users, servers (including Web servers), directory services, security, messaging, widgets and live text, and server clusters.
SecuringThis section describes security features, including execution control lists, IDs, and TLS.
Overview of Domino securitySetting up security for your organization is a critical task. Your security infrastructure is critical for protecting your organization's IT resources and assets. As an administrator, you need to give careful consideration to your organization's security requirements before you set up any servers or users. Up-front planning pays off later in minimizing the risks of compromised security.
Server access for Notes® users, Internet users, and Domino® serversTo control user and server access to other servers, Domino® uses the settings you specify on the Security tab in the Server document as well as the rules of validation and authentication. If a server validates and authenticates the Notes® user, Internet user, or server, and the settings in the Server document allow access, the user or server is allowed access to the server.
The database access control listEvery .NSF database has an access control list (ACL) that specifies the level of access that users and servers have to that database. Although the names of access levels are the same for users and servers, those assigned to users determine the tasks that they can perform in a database, while those assigned to servers determine what information within the database the servers can replicate. Only someone with Manager access can create or modify the ACL.
Domino® server and Notes® user IDsDomino® uses ID files to identify users and to control access to servers. Every Domino server, Notes® certifier, and Notes user must have an ID.
The execution control listYou use an execution control list (ECL) to configure workstation data security. An ECL protects user workstations against active content from unknown or suspect sources, and can be configured to limit the action of any active content that does run on workstations.
Domino® server-based certification authorityYou can set up a Domino® certifier that uses the CA process server task to manage and process certificate requests. The CA process runs as a process on Domino servers that are used to issue certificates. When you set up a Notes® or Internet certifier, you link it to the CA process on the server in order to take advantage of CA process activities. Only one instance of the CA process can run on a server; however, the process can be linked to multiple certifiers.
TLS securityTransport Layer Security (TLS) is a security protocol that provides communications privacy and authentication for Domino® server tasks that operate over TCP/IP.
TLS and S/MIME for clientsClients can use a Domino® certificate authority (CA) application or a third-party CA to obtain certificates for secure TLS and S/MIME communication.
EncryptionEncryption protects data from unauthorized access.
Web-based authenticationDefine and set up authentication methods for web users, for example through basic password authentication, passkeys, time-based one-time password, or single sign-on.
Using Domino as an OIDC providerThe Domino HTTP task can act as an OIDC identity provider. This feature allows administrators to leverage their existing Domino HTTP authentication experience -- including passkeys, TOTP, custom domcfg login forms, and external identity providers -- to authenticate end users with applications, servers, and services that support OIDC.
TuningUse this information to improve HCL Domino® server, Domino Web server, and messaging performance through the use of resource balancing and activity trends, advanced database properties, cluster statistics, and the Server Health Monitor.
Using activity trendsDomino® server resource utilization can be separated into two types, system activity and user activity. System activity, which includes the level of processor, disk, memory, and network consumption that Domino generates to keep the server running, is a fixed amount of activity, as long as systems are healthy and performing smoothly. Domino servers typically use a modest percentage of their resources to run. The remaining server capacity is used to support user activity, which varies with the usefulness of the data on the server.
Tuning Domain Indexer performanceEach time the Domain Indexer task runs, it looks in the Domain Catalog for new databases that have the Include in multi database indexing property enabled. It then looks for documents and files in existing databases and file systems that are new or changed since the last time it ran, and adds them to the Domain Index.
Improving Domino® server performanceRead the following topics for help on improving basic Domino® server performance and capacity, as well as the performance of these features: Agent Manager, databases and the Domino directory, the directory catalog, LDAP searches, mail, Web server, and UNIX™ server.
Improving mail performanceDomino® includes features that improve efficiency in specific environments, but these features may not be switched on by default.
Setting advanced database propertiesAdvanced database properties include performance optimization and compression features, as well as ways to manage usability features such as unread marks and soft deletions.