Does catalog.nsf need to be replicated?

HCL Domino Domino Forum
1

Dear Community,

All is in the title : does catalog.nsf need to be replicated ?

A domain catalog exists on my Domain Server and standard catalogs exist on all other servers.

It would be convenient for me to have on each server a database which has all documents from all servers.

Does the domain catalog take the data from the other catalogs or does it build it - I mean he makes a connexion on each server and build the catalog for himself ?

My purpose is to have a full domain catalog on every server (convenient for some internal processes).

But if data has to be built by every server it makes no sense.

Thank you for any hint.

Benoît

2

Subject: ACL will be updated when task is run

When the catalog task runs it will check the ACL of the catalog.nsf and will update it so it is always the default. You should use the domain catalog.

3

Subject: It can

Just create a connection doc so it will replicate. Might want to confirm that the catalog.nsf is a replica and if not just create a new replica from one server to all the servers you want in the catalog.nsf

The catalog taks does not wipe the db of all the docs it works with what is there and add/deletes docs as needed

4

Subject: Catalog v Domain catalog

Thank you all for your replies.

Srv1’s server doc has the following parameter “Server task / Domain Catalog / Basics / Domain Catalog” set to Enable.

All other servers has this parameter set to Disabled.

Result is that each server has it’s own catalog.nsf filled with its own dbs.

I need to check this further more as the server was not rebooted after this modification but does it need it ?

I expected to have a “global” catalog on srv1 which will fetch catalogs on srv2, srv3 and so on…

But srv1 just have its own data…

Surprising as this line 14/06/2017 02:41:37 Pulled changes from catalog on SRVx/AAAA is found for all the other servers.

If I replicate from the other servers I will indeed get a result for any other server, but if so what is the purpose of a domain catalog ?

I do miss something in my understanding.

It might be usefull to know that I have a mix of Domino server version :

srv1 (domain server) is running 8.5.3

srv2, srv3, srv4, srv5,srv9 are running 8.5.3

srv6, srv8, srvt1, srvt2 are running 9.0.1

Also usefull:

srv1 runs catalog task at 2:00

All other servers run the task at 1:00.

Once again thank you for any help.

-Ben-

5

Subject: ACL

My experience over the years is that the Catalog, by default, is a replica on each server in the domain, however, the ACL for the LocalDomainServers, by default, is ‘reader’, so the entries don’t get replicated.

In your logs you should see multiple entries similar to: 'Access control is set in catalog.nsf to not allow replication from catalog.nsf ’

If you change the LocalDomainServers to Manager, the catalogs should replicate. Better yet, you might add each server individually as Manager.

It seems for some reason that the ACL might be getting changed back, but it may be happening whenever I upgrade the server and i just don’t catch it…

I don’t remember for sure, but i THINK that the Domain Catalog server just reaches out to the individual server catalogs and replicates their data in…

6

Subject: Concerning best practice

If your question is about best practice, it is common to not replicate catalog.nsf everywhere. For example, if you have servers not hosting user applications or mail files, then there is little need to have catalog.nsf on those servers. Also, if you have scores of servers, you will have the overhead of ensuring that all replicas are up-to-date/in synch.

It is common to have the location of the catalog/domain search server to be specified in the users’ location document as one specific server, and to have staff go to that server rather than the server they happen to be on at the moment.

7

Subject: Much simple as expected

This is useful to read: Demande d’accès - Demandes\Toutes Notes://SRVDOM5/C125784F004E5FAC/6A35B66D5D84BCCEC12577AF002F9A9C/1B627250E4186635C1258141003BF9A6

I just follow what was suggested:

  1. remove all existing catalog.nsf

  2. set all server as domain cataloger

  3. let the catalog task run on every server

All catalog.nsf are poulated with each others

Usually, I prefer to manage all aspects of an application, especially ACL, replication parameters and so on.

It seems that the catalog works on its own, changing its db’s acl has needed, replicating itself whenever needed…

8

Subject: Domain Catlogs replicate all the data from the other Server Catalogs

They are replicas, but what can replicate is controlled by the ACL automatically for you… Should be no need to change any default configurations…

9

Subject: IBM Support

I’ve actually had a couple tickets open in the past re: catalog.nsf - and was told that by adding the servers to the ACL of the catalog.nsf, I could ensure that the information was replicated throughout the domain.