Assigning users to a Home Sametime Server 

This topic discusses the concept of the Home Sametime Server setting, its purpose, use and configuration. 

About this task

What is the Home Sametime Server setting? 

In environments that have more than one Sametime server, the Home Sametime Server setting forces users to login to a specific server or cluster. 

The Home Sametime Server setting is a field or attribute in the user’s person record in the directory. It defines a name or cluster name of the Sametime server where the user’s contact list resides. When the Home Sametime Server field is configured, a user is always redirected to their home server or cluster, no matter which Sametime server hostname they have configured in the client. This redirection ensures the user is presented with a consistent experience, as some user data is on the server. 

Purpose of this setting 

User data retrieved from the server includes the policy, managed settings, contact list, privacy settings and persistent chat data. This data is retrieved upon login and determines which features the user is allowed to access and provides their persistent chat data. 

If the user attempts to log into a server that is not where their data resides, this important data will be missing if the Home Sametime Server is not in use. The user may not receive the correct policy. In clustered environments, this data is replicated to each cluster member. In standalone server environments (non-clustered Sametime servers) this data is not replicated. 

When to use the setting 

This setting is only required in environments where there are multiple Sametime servers that do not share this data. For environments with only one Sametime server, or one cluster of Sametime servers, the setting is not needed. 

The setting can be used to disallow users access to a Sametime Community. By default, all users defined in the directory configuration (LDAP or native Domino directory) are allowed to access Sametime. To prevent access to the server, the Home Sametime Server field can be implemented and contain a value such as “no access” to deny user access. 

What happens when the setting is enforced? 

Here are some examples of how the setting works. 

For Standalone Servers: 

The Home Sametime Server value is set to server1, the user attempts to login to server2, then server2 will re-direct the login virtually to server1. The user then retrieves their data (policy, privacy, etc) from server1. This requires that the two servers have a connection over port 1516. If the user’s Home Sametime Server is down, the user will not be able to login. 

For Clusters:

If the Home Sametime Server value is set to a cluster1, the user attempts to login to a member of cluster2, the user will be redirected to one of the cluster members from cluster1. 

For Denying Access: 

If the Home Sametime Server value is set to anything other than a valid Sametime server or cluster name, the server disallows the user’s attempt to login. 

Implementing the Home Sametime Server setting 

For native Domino Directory, open the user’s person document, on the basics tab, add the Sametime server’s Domino name to the “Sametime Server” field. If a cluster is in use, enter the name of the Sametime cluster as it is defined in the stconfig.nsf CommunityCluster document. Once all person documents have been updated, there are no further steps. 

For LDAP Directories: 

For LDAP directories, each user's person entry in an LDAP directory must contain an attribute in which a user's home Sametime Community Server can be specified. You can either:  
  • Add a new attribute to the LDAP directory to hold the name of each user's home Sametime server. This added attribute must appear in the person entry of every Sametime user in the LDAP directory. 
  • Use an attribute that already exists in the person entries of each Sametime user for this purpose. 

Procedure for LDAP Directories:

Procedure

  1. Launch the HCL Notes Client or Administration Client. 
  2. Click Open> Application > Open an Application 
    • In the server field, enter the name of the Sametime server.
    • In the file name field, enter “stconfig.nsf”.
    • Click Open. 
  3. Scroll down to the LDAP section and double-click the LDAPServer document to open it. 
  4. Double-click inside the document to place in edit mode. 
  5. Scroll to the bottom of the document and populate the Home Sametime Server field with the name of the attribute that contains the Home Sametime Server value on the LDAP server. 
  6. Save and close the LDAPServer document.
  7. Restart the server for these changes to take effect.