Moving sametime to a new server: Users do not get the right policies and the right managed-settings.xml

HCL Sametime Sametime Forum
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1

We are moving sametime from an "old" Sametime 11.6 server to a new Sametime 12.0.1 server on docker.

We recreated the server from scratch and created new policies as well as a new managed-settings.xml

policies-user.xml on the old server points to the old managed-settings.xml

policies-user.xml on the new server points to the new managed-settings.xml

This is important as Sametime 12 needs an authentication server to be set when Sametime 11 did not need one in order for the users to single sign on to Sametime using their embedded Sametime client.

Both servers have the same hostname but different IP addresses.

In order to test all functionality on the new server we changed DNS for a few testusers to point to the new sametime server. Some of the users found the sametime server, immediately downloaded the managed-settings.xml and logged in: Everything fine.

But for about half of the test users the login failed: The managed-settings.xml was just the one from the old server. And although the timestamp of it changes on every client start it never gets updated with the data from the new server.

To make it even weirder: When we change the managed-settings.xml on the OLD server, the one on the client is updated as well, although DNS for the update url clearly points to the IP of the new server.

Two questions:

- Without resetting the user: how can I force it to download the "new" policies from the new server

- Who / what downloads the managed-settings.xml on the client as it seams that the client downloads it from the old IP although when opening the url in the browser shows the new server

Remark: I already found the setting

<settingGroup name="com.hcl.rcp.managedsettings">
     <setting name="UpdateIntervalInMins" value="1" isLocked="false"/>
</settingGroup>

but as the client does not download the "right" managed-settings.xml this does not help as he never gets the instruction to use "shorter" update intervals and I don't want to set this setting for 2000 users as it might cause some network load.

2

Hi Torsten,

It would be best to have you open up a case so that we can properly investigate the issue.

Here are a couple of things that can cause problems:

1) Your managed-settings.xml file must be named that. It can't be named anything else. If you host more than one you need to put them in separate folders and use the same file name "managed-settings.xml". For example: http://server.example.com/old/managed-settings.xml and http://serer.example.com/new/managed-settings.xml

2) In the Connect client and embedded client, only the primary community obeys managed-settings.xml. So when you are testing, you need to re-set user and set up the new hostname as the primary community.

3) When you are migrating from one server to another, you need to check Sametime.ini setting ST_COMMUNITY_ID, they need to be the same value (or blank) otherwise they are seen as separate environments and the existing contacts will appear offline.

Policies are always retrieved upon login, but settings will be enforced/applied after the client is restarted. Make sure that you restart the client after the policy has been retrieved.

The example you posted is wrong. You posted:

<settingGroup name="com.hcl.rcp.managedsettings">

Actually we don't have any that begin with "com.hcl." they are all "com.ibm.". I believe the above may be for applying in the plugin_customization.ini. For managed-settings.xml you need to follow the instructions here:

https://help.hcltechsw.com/sametime/1201/admin/config_client_xml_file.html

You may be interested in the community preferences, the ones that you can change using managed-settings.xml are listed here:

https://help.hcltechsw.com/sametime/1201/admin/config_client_comm_pref.html

If you don't see what you want there, it may actually be a managed-community-configs.xml setting. This is described here: https://help.hcltechsw.com/sametime/1201/admin/admin_st_mng_remotecomm.html

The actual settings you can change are here:
https://help.hcltechsw.com/sametime/1201/admin/managed_community.html

Have a look at authServerUrl ^^

Note that only the standalone Connect client obeys the managed-community-configs.xml, the Notes embedded client does not.

Please open a case if you need help, we are here to assist.

Thank you,

Casey Toole, HCL

3

Hi Casey,

thank you for your reply. I ask this question for a customer of mine and of course they opened a ticket in parallel. I just wanted to check if I can get an answer here probably quicker than via ticket.

Most of the points you mention are already taken care of, that thing with the settingGroup name is something I have to check.

I'll let the customer go the "ticket"-route and see how it goes.

But if the "com.hcl.rcp.managedsettings" is wrong, then someone needs to fix the HCL documentation. This is the site where I copied the example from, and its all about managed-settings.xml.

4

I will have the documentation corrected. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. If your client needs any assistance with the case let us know.