Lotus Notes Help

[faintember]

I am at a university that uses Lotus as their email client, so that means that all Mac users get to use Domino Web Access (which stinks). The faculty that use Macs can use the Lotus Notes program (the university offers the program to everyone for free, btw), but the program requires an ".id" file, i.e. "yourname.id". The IT dept will not create these files for the students. After doing some google searching and forum searches i couldnt find the answer, but does anyone know how to make the ".id" file? I really would love to do this just to irritate the hell out of our crappy IT department.

All replies are thanked in advance!

 

[iMeowbot]

It contains a set of cryptographic keys, and you need the IT people's cooperation to get it signed with their keys.

 

[faintember]

So, if i was able to say, get a faculty members .id file, could i work some magic to get it to work for me?

I just really hate using the Domino Web Access. The newest version that they are using now barely works with Safari and Camino, and it will not even allow the user to signout sucessfully! The IT people's solution to this: Use IE.

Basically, i am stuck, right?

 

[iMeowbot]

So, if i was able to say, get a faculty members .id file, could i work some magic to get it to work for me?

You would need to get a hold of an admin's id file and password to do that. A faculty ID file and password would just let you read their mail The keys have to be built against the server's key, it's not something you could cobble together by hand..

Basically, i am stuck, right?

Yup. I understand why they have that policy, the ID stuff is a headache. It's not just the creation work, but also the pain of recovering lost keys because thousands of students didn't make backups of those ID files like they were supposed to. If the security there is any good, key recovery isn't even something that one admin could do alone.

I just really hate using the Domino Web Access. The newest version that they are using now barely works with Safari and Camino, and it will not even allow the user to signout sucessfully! The IT people's solution to this: Use IE.

Huh. So much for that big wet kiss from IBM

 

[billraff]

Yes, in order to have a user ID you would have to be a registered user which causes the creation of the ID file by the server's certifier ID. As to the logout issue with Safari that is a known issue easily fixed via a template change and then replacing the design of the mail file with the new template. Probably already in a shipping release.
DWA (Domino Web Access) was very IE centric for quite some time (because of the use of activex components) but many efforts have been made to make it friendlier to non-Microsoft browsers.

 

[edesignuk]

ID files are the basis of how you are identified to domino as being you, if my understanding is correct. The domino admins have to create you and ID, there's no other way.

 

[faintember]

Thanks for all of the replies. Jeez, i am glad that i do not have to deal with this university, and their crappy email much longer. Oh well, i learned something in the process at least. Thanks for the replies.

 

[dcv]

Oh... LoNo... my favourite subject

Only a system administrator can do what you're asking. You need to run the Domino Administrator client and have access to the server's Certifier ID file (cert.id) in order to register users and create an ID file.

Given that you have web access, then you must have a Person document in the Domino Directory (i.e. the name & address book). You might have an ID file created for you which *might* be attached to your Person record in the NAB but it just hasn't been distributed by the admins. Have a look in the Domino Directory db (if you have access to it). You can open this on the web (unless disabled by the admins) but the web front-end sucks big time.

The file is called names.nsf... try accessing it on the same server as your mail file.

e.g. if the path to your mail file is http://NotesServer01/mail/jbloggs.nsf

then try opening http://NotesServer01/names.nsf

If you do manage to open this database then have a look for your person record under the People & Groups views.

It's unlikely that it's there, but it depends on how lazy the Admins have been! If you do manage to detach it then you'll need a password for it, which may or may not be the same one as your intranet password...

 

[faintember]

ditecokevanilla, i tried snooping around. I did find something interesting (or i think it is). When i sign in to the Domino Web Access the url is: https://email1.A_UNIVERSITY.edu/mail/MYUSERNAME.nsf?OpenDatabase&ui=webmail

When i tried to replace MYUSERNAME with names.nsf (and deleting all subsequent url information) i get a 404 error (file does not exist). Other attempts on the names.nsf url gives me the error that i am using an unsupported browser (safari). I tried it with Firefox as well, but all other attempts gave an 404 error as well. Oh well.... Thanks for the help anyways.... may Lotus Notes burn in the fiery pits of hell!

 

[dcv]

When i sign in to the Domino Web Access the url is: https://email1.A_UNIVERSITY.edu/mail/MYUSERNAME.nsf?OpenDatabase&ui=webmail

When i tried to replace MYUSERNAME with names.nsf (and deleting all subsequent url information) i get a 404 error (file does not exist).

But did you remove the "/mail" from the path as well?
Names.nsf resides in the domino\data\ directory of the Domino server, whereas your mail file is in domino\data\mail\

You should try http://email1.A_UNIVERSITY.edu/names.nsf

Oh well.... Thanks for the help anyways.... may Lotus Notes burn in the fiery pits of hell!

Hehe, I think this on an almost-daily basis

 

[faintember]

You should try http://email1.A_UNIVERSITY.edu/names.nsf

Guess what, that worked. I have access to the Domino Database. I found my email user name, the email server that i am on and a link that leads to the details of my user name, where it says "Basics, Work/Home, Other, Miscellaneous, Certificates, Roaming, and Administration"
I figured it would be under Certificates, and when i lick there it says "Notes Certificates, Internet Certificates and Flat Name Key".

Any clue as to where to go from here, or am i already in the land of "the university is gonna screw me for accessing this database????"

 

[dcv]

Guess what, that worked. I have access to the Domino Database. I found my email user name, the email server that i am on and a link that leads to the details of my user name, where it says "Basics, Work/Home, Other, Miscellaneous, Certificates, Roaming, and Administration"
I figured it would be under Certificates, and when i lick there it says "Notes Certificates, Internet Certificates and Flat Name Key".

Any clue as to where to go from here, or am i already in the land of "the university is gonna screw me for accessing this database????"

Well as I said, it may or may not be there, it depends on your Notes Administrators. One option when creating user IDs is to keep them attached to the user's Person document in the NAB. So unless you can see a file attachment there called either "user.id" or "<yourname>.id" then unfortunately it's a no-go. In that case it looks like the Notes Admins probably didn't leave them available in the Domino Directory then and they'll be on a file server somewhere which only they have access to. Well it was worth a stab... sorry we couldn't actually get to it.

Names.nsf is basically "the name and address book" so it should indeed be accessible to all and they certainly should not screw you for accessing it!

 

[faintember]

Thanks of all of the help dietcokevanilla. I didnt see any .id files from my snooping around. Oh well, at least i have learned a few things about the Lotus email system. I bet they only made the .id files for faculty and didnt even bother with the students. Yes, it is that kind of IT department. It took them three weeks to get the shared PC in my office to work again. The culprit? A stick of bad ram. 3 weeks to determine that. Someone needs to be fired.

Anyways, thanks again for the help.

 

[Skadel]

Looks like not using Domino Web Access at all

In looking at your sign in URL what you are actually using is the old Lotus Webmail template, which is about 10 years old and does suck. To date Domino Web Access has not run on the Mac and that is why you get dumped over to webmail.

At Lotusphere last week, IBM just announced that Mac support for Domino Web Access will be coming later this year. DWA is a *significant* improvement over webmail. It's actually quite cool. Here's the announcement... http://www-306.ibm.com/software/swnews/swnews.nsf/n/nhan6lbhzg?OpenDocument&Site=lotus