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Administering Connections 7.0
Welcome to the HCL Connections documentation site. HCL Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
Upgrading and updating
Upgrade HCL Connections and its supporting software to the latest release and then update the installation with the latest interim fixes or cumulative fixes. Refer to the What's New in HCL Connections to review the features in the latest release and gather download links or links to the latest fix list and update strategy information.
Updating Connections 7.0 with the latest fixes
There are two types of fixes for HCL Connections 7.0 - interim fixes (iFixes) and cumulative fixes (CFixes). iFixes address single issues, while cumulative fixes address groups of issues. Both iFixes and CFixes are installed in the same manner and will be referred to as "fixes" in the installation instructions.
Downloading fixes
Download fixes from the HCL License & Download Portal.

Administering Connections 7.0
Welcome to the HCL Connections documentation site. HCL Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
- What's new in HCL Connections
  Find out about features that are new or updated in this release of HCL Connections.
- Product overview
  Learn how to deploy, customize, and administer the HCL Connections social networking product.
- Planning
  Before installing HCL Connections™, study the system requirements, deployment options, and documentation conventions.
- Installing Connections
  To install HCL Connections™, you need to follow a detailed series of procedures.
- Installing or upgrading Component Pack for Connections
  HCL Connections 7.0 now supports the latest Component Pack based in Harbor, an open-source container and Helm registry hosted by HCL for the Component Pack build. Deployments that are new or carrying Component Pack 7 will use this approach for a simplified installation/upgrade process, while releases prior to 7.0 will first need to upgrade to Component Pack 7 using a zip file and a local Docker registry.
- Post-installation tasks
  After installation, you need to perform further tasks to ensure an efficient deployment.
- Optional: Installing and configuring Tiny Editors for HCL Connections
  The Tiny editors are alternative rich-text editors which can be installed for HCL Connections™. They provide additional features and extensive customization options not available with the default editor.
- Optional post-installation tasks
  Complete the post-installation tasks that are relevant to your deployment.
- Uninstalling
  Uninstall HCL Connections.
- Upgrading and updating
  Upgrade HCL Connections and its supporting software to the latest release and then update the installation with the latest interim fixes or cumulative fixes. Refer to the What's New in HCL Connections to review the features in the latest release and gather download links or links to the latest fix list and update strategy information.
  - Getting ready for upgrading or updating
    Take steps to inform users and protect data before starting an HCL Connections upgrade or update.
  - Ways to upgrade to Connections 7
    You can upgrade to HCL Connections 7 by by doing either a side-by-side or an in-place upgrade, or by taking an approach that is a hybrid of the two.
  - Side-by-side upgrades
    You can upgrade to Connections 7.0 by installing it in a new environment and then migrating data, configurations, and customizations from the existing production environment before switching over.
  - In-place and hybrid upgrades
    With the Update function in IBM Installation Manager, you can upgrade the existing version of Connections to the next version, either in your production environment or in a in a new environment identical to production.
  - Updating Connections 7.0 with the latest fixes
    There are two types of fixes for HCL Connections 7.0 - interim fixes (iFixes) and cumulative fixes (CFixes). iFixes address single issues, while cumulative fixes address groups of issues. Both iFixes and CFixes are installed in the same manner and will be referred to as "fixes" in the installation instructions.
    - Installing fixes as a non-root user
      Grant permissions to a non-root user to install fixes.
    - Downloading fixes
      Download fixes from the HCL License & Download Portal.
    - Downloading the latest version of the Update Wizard (updateInstaller)
      Download the latest version of the Update Wizard (updateInstaller) from the HCL Connections™ HCL License & Delivery Portal.
    - Installing fixes
      Use the update wizard in interactive or silent mode to install fixes.
    - Uninstalling fixes
      If the installation of an fix fails, you can restore your HCL Connections environment to its previous state.
  - Synchronizing nodes
    Synchronize all the nodes in a cluster.
- Administering
  Run administration and maintenance tasks to keep your environment up-to-date. For example, learn how to customize your deployment or how to use the wsadmin utility to edit configuration files. You can also schedule tasks, maintain application databases, moderate content, or manage users and their roles.
- Customizing
  Customize HCL Connections™ to fit your environment.
- Security
  HCL Connections™ provides a flexible security infrastructure that supports an open, easily shareable data model.
- Mobile
  See the HCL Connections™ Mobile documentation for Connections Cloud and Connections on-premises.
- Developing
  Get information about how to use the APIs provided with HCL Connections™ and how to use Connections Customizer to modify the Connections pages that are returned to users.
- Troubleshooting and support
  To isolate and resolve problems with your HCL products, you can use the troubleshooting and support information. This information contains instructions for using the problem-determination resources that are provided with your HCL products, including HCL Connections™.

Downloading fixes

Download fixes from the HCL License & Download Portal.

Before you begin

List all the fixes that are already installed by completing the following steps:

Open a command line and change to the connections_root/updateInstaller directory.
Run the following command to list installed fixes:
updateSilent.sh|bat -installDir connections_root -fix -applications application_name
Where application_name is one of the following HCL Connections™applications:
- activities
- blogs
- communities
- dogear
- files
- forums
- homepage
- metrics
- mobile
- moderation
- news
- profiles
- search
- wikis
Use a comma or semicolon to delimit multiple applications. If you do not provide this variable, all installed fixes are listed.

About this task

To download fixes, complete the following steps.

Procedure

Refer to the What's New in HCL Connections to review the latest new features in a release, gather download links, and look over update strategy information.

Note: Refer to the Knowledge Article, Road map for Upgrading Connections for additional information.

From the HCL License & Download Portal, find or select the product Connections.
Select your currently installed version from the Installed Version drop-down menu, then select your platform from the Platform menu, and click Continue.
Use one of the available search methods to identify the fix that you want to install.
Follow the online instructions to download the fix to a temporary directory.
Extract the contents of the fix file and then copy the extracted files to the following directory:
- AIX® or Linux™: connections_root/updateInstaller/fixes
- Microsoft™ Windows™: connections_root\updateInstaller\fixes
Note: If a fixes subdirectory does not already exist in the update directory, create it. You need to specify this directory when you install fixes.