Rampant Sametime Upgrades
Tags :Rant
I came
in early Saturday morning (and yes early on a Saturday for me means waking
before 6am to be somewhere) to do some Sametime server upgrades for ourselves
and customers that we host. I had three planned. Well all three
encountered the same error, plus some random ones. Shall we go through
them and hopefully you pick something up? Let me preface this by
saying that I do tons of Sametime installs, upgrades and the like, even
writing the Sametime 3 admin exam (which
I made small so it might go unnoticed, LOL) .
But for some reason, I am sure it was the full moon that was still
out, the servers decided to wage an early strike against my humor.
Server
1 - This is a shared Sametime server, tunnelled protocols and heavily
used. It was running 2.5 with the FP1 on top. The Domino code
installation went smooth and fast. Sametime on the other hand, wasn't
as cooperative. It throws an error trying to full-text index the
sthelpad.nsf database. It says it cannot complete it. Now
instead of playing nice and skipping along to the next task and sending
me an alert about this, the installation fails. Stops, won't go,
*poof* when you click OK. Now I am definitely not a software developer,
but after using Domino this long, I am quite aware I can create a full-text
index at a later date if necessary. Why would you possibly want to
stop an installation because of a full-text index? So I removed the
previous index from 2.5 and tried again. No go. So I removed
both the database and index, deleted the registry keys and anything to
do with Sametime in the Notes.ini file (see Technote #195123). Reinstalled
and there you have it, simple as can be......until #2 creeps along.
Server
2 - I should have seen this coming. No, not the above error,
which I got in full force, and cheated more by moving the ST 3.0 sthelpad.nsf
database and the new full-text index across from server 1. This
server apparently hid it's troubles in the shadows of the data center rack.
Keeping them in hibernation like a hungry bear that wanted a quick
snack on morning hating administrators. This server was not only
an upgrade from 2.5 to 3.0, but also a move from a stand-alone server to
joining the customers domain. Domino upgrade, once again successful
and simple. I then restarted the server as a new one, and had it
bring the address book down from the customers domain across the country.
They had already shipped a server.id file to use so that was simple.
Now the bear apparently wakened at this point in time. Since
we are switching domains that also means we need to switch the signing
of the Sametime information. Well this happens after the above fiasco
of aborted installs because of full-text indexing, but we won't go there
again. I am still taking Tylenol because of this and thinking Domino
therapy might be needed). Oddly enough, the registry decided not
to update fully. How do I know this? After much head banging.
The server installed, launched, showed Sametime coming up, but threw
these weird errors on the screen I had never seen nor could I find documented.
Server
3 - I don't even have to type here, I had seen it all. Traveled
the world of Sametime. Been in the drudges of battle with evil network
cables and multiple IP's for tunneling. So the battle was swift and
furious as I forced the machine to follow my orders and be done damn quick.
:-)
If I find the energy to type more, it will
be after my nap under my desk.
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On Monday, March 24th, 2003 by Chris Miller
