Managing anonymous access to virtual places

Anonymous users can enter a virtual place and have awareness of other users in the same virtual place.

About this task

This capability to have awareness of other users in the same virtual place is sometimes called place-based awareness. Place-based awareness differs from community-wide awareness. With community-wide awareness, users can have awareness of any user in the community who is online. IBM® Sametime® provides users with community-wide awareness functionality. Anonymous users are not allowed to have community-wide awareness in any Sametime clients.

Enter information for anonymous access to a virtual place. Each attendee who accepts the default name has a number added to the end (for example, User1, User2).

This task must be completed separately for each server within a Sametime Community Server cluster.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the Integrated Solutions Console.
  2. Click Sametime System Console > Sametime Servers > Sametime Community Servers.
  3. In the Sametime Community Servers list, click the deployment name of the server with the connectivity information that you want to change.
  4. Click the Anonymous access tab.
  5. Select the appropriate anonymous access type for the Sametime Community Server:
    • Anonymous allowed to all users - Allow any anonymous user to access community server.
    • Allowed by token authentication only - Allow access to the Community Server only to anonymous users who have a valid token.
    • Denied - Deny access to the Community Server to all anonymous users.
  6. If you want to let an anonymous user have a unique display name when accessing a Sametime application that includes awareness, click Users of Sametime applications (databases such as stconf.nsf or websites) can specify a display name so that they do not appear online as "anonymous." A display name entry dialog box appears when a user accesses the Sametime application. This display name allows the anonymous user to be individually identified in any presence lists in the Sametime application.
    Note: The ACL settings of the application must allow anonymous access, too.
  7. If you want to have a domain name automatically appended to the display name entered by the user at the name entry dialog box, click Default domain for anonymous users.
  8. If you want a name to appear by default in the name entry dialog box, click Default name.
    For instance, if the Default name field contains the entry User the first person entering a meeting sees User displayed by default in the name field of the name entry dialog box. If the person accepts the default and enters the application, the person is identified as User1 in any presence list in the application.
  9. Specify the level of access that an anonymous user of an application enabled with Sametime technology has to the directory. You can limit an anonymous user's ability to view names in the directory. For example, you might prevent anonymous users from browsing all names in a directory or searching for names in the directory.
    • Users cannot browse or search the Directory

      Anonymous users cannot search or browse the directory.

    • Users can type names to add them to an awareness list

      Anonymous users can type text in an user search interface to search for person or group entries in the directory. However, users cannot view or browse a list containing all entries in the directory. Users might perform such searches to add users to a presence list.

    • Users can browse the directory (see a list of names) or type names (resolve users and groups)

      Anonymous users can type text in an user search interface and search for group or person entries in the directory. Anonymous users can also browse lists that contain all entries in the directory. When this option is selected, anonymous users can see all group and name entries in the directory, but cannot see the content of a group entry (the list of names within a group entry). Users cannot browse the LDAP directory on the LDAP server

    • Users can browse the directory to see group content and names, or type names

      Anonymous users have all searching and browsing privileges described for the Users can browse the directory (see a list of names) or type names (resolve users and groups) setting. In addition, users can search and browse within group entries in the directory and access the user and group names that are specified within group entries in the directory.

  10. Click OK
  11. Restart the Sametime Community Server for settings to take effect.