Preventing the Media Manager from connecting to specific Community Servers

If the Sametime® Media Manager is deployed in an environment containing a cluster of Sametime Community Servers where one or more Community Servers are not configured to accept connections from the Media Manager, you can blacklist those Community Servers to prevent inadvertent connection errors.

About this task

Audio and video features in Sametime will not function unless the Media Manager can successfully connect to all Community Servers of which it is aware. In some situations, your Sametime deployment might include a cluster of Community Servers where some of those servers do not accept connections from the Media Manager. If the Media Manager attempts a connection it will fail and audio/video services will not be available to users. You can prevent these inadvertent connection attempts by blacklisting the unavailable Community Servers.

For example, suppose you configure the Media Manager to connect to a Community Server cluster (specified in the stavconfig.xml file) and the Media Manager successfully connects to a particular Community Server. The connected Community Server's own names.nsf file resolves other Community Servers through the primary names.nsf and da.nsf files, and informs the Media Manager that there are additional Community Servers within the community. The Media Manager automatically attempts to connect to those additional Community Servers but fails for any Community Server that is not configured to accept the connection.

When this happens, users may see the green telephone icon when they start their Sametime client and connect to a community, but the icon will turn gray when a Community Server connection fails, and that user will not have access to audio and video features.

If a Community Server is not reachable due to network issues, the error looks like this:
[4/19/11 16:08:45:006 EDT] 0000003c ServerManager > 
com.lotus.sametime.telephonymanager.cluster.ServerManager loggedOut 
ENTRY Logged out from: Fully_qualified_Community_Server_Name due to ST
reason: -2147483129, desc: ST_CONNECT_HOST_UNREACHABLE, event: 
com.lotus.sametime.community.LoginEvent Id: 80000002
[4/19/11 16:08:45:006 EDT] 0000003c ClusterManage 3
com.lotus.sametime.telephonymanager.cluster.ClusterManager
serverLoggedOut Server name: Fully_qualified_Community_Server_Name,
Server URL: NotAParticipatingCommServer, reason: -2147483129
[4/19/11 16:08:45:006 EDT] 0000003c ServerManager W
com.lotus.sametime.telephonymanager.cluster.ServerManager loggedOut
reason = 80000207                                                             
If a Community Server is not reachable due to certificate issues, the error looks like this instead:
[4/19/11 16:09:47:084 EDT] 00000045 ServerManager >
com.lotus.sametime.telephonymanager.cluster.ServerManager loggedOut
ENTRY Logged out from: Fully_qualified_Community_Server_Name due to ST
reason: -2147483108, desc: ST_CONNECT_NOT_PRIVILEGED, event:
com.lotus.sametime.community.LoginEvent Id: 80000002  

To prevent the Media Manager from attempting to connect to unavailable Community Servers, create a blacklist file listing the Community Servers to avoid, and store it on the server hosting the Sametime Conference Manager component as explained.

Procedure

Determine the list of Community Servers that the Media Manager is attempting to connect with, and copy the fully qualified domain name for each server that you want to blacklist. You can determine the list of servers by enabling logging and tracing for the Media Manager as follows and then reviewing the start-up logs.
  1. Enable tracing by entering this command:

    *=info: com.lotus.sametime.telephonymanager.*=all

    For information about using a command to enable tracing, see the topic Setting a diagnostic trace on a WebSphere Application Server.

    For information about enabling the logs, see Setting a diagnostic trace on a WebSphere Application Server.

  2. With the trace setting in place, restart the Conference Manager Server. During the server startup, review the Community Server name formats.
    Look for a message like this, indicating that a particular Community Server could not be reached:
    Logged out from:Fully_qualified_Community_Server_Name
  3. Create the blacklist file:
    1. Create a new file called st.telephony.adapter.properties using any editor.
    2. Add the following statements to the file:
      connecting.server.dns=DNS_name_of_CommunityServer_cluster
      servers.exclude.list=Fully_qualified_Community_Server_Name

      where:

      • CommunityServer_dns_name is the DNS name used to connect to the Community Server cluster (the cluster's rotating DNS server or load balancer).
        Attention: Do not leave this setting blank.

        This value is filled in automatically by the Media Manager's own configuration; however you must include a value here now to prevent errors.

      • CommunityServer_canonical_names is a list of Community Server names (separated with ;) that the Media Manager should not connect to; use the names shown in the Conference Manager start-up logs described in step 1; spell the names exactly as shown in the log.

        For example: cn=sametimeserver1/ou=west/o=acme; cn=sametimeserver2/ou=west/o=acme

        If the list includes only one server, there is no need for a separator.

      For example:
      connecting.server.dns=stcommcluster.example.com
      servers.exclude.list=cn=commsvr1/ou=west/o=example; cn=commsvr2/ou=west/o=example
    3. Save and close the file.
  4. Copy the blacklist file to the Media Manager's application profile:
    • On a single Media Manager server or Conference Manager component, copy the st.telephony.adapter.properties file to the was_install_root/profiles/STMSAppProfile/properties directory.
    • In a Conference Manager cluster, copy the st.telephony.adapter.properties file to the application profile directory on every node in the cluster:
      • Primary node: was_install_root/profiles/STMSAppProfile
      • Secondary node: was_install_root/profiles/STMSSNAppProfile

    For additional information about default paths, see Directory conventions.

  5. Restart the server or nodes:
    • For a stand-alone Media Manager or Conference Manager, restart it now as follows:
      1. In the server's Integrated Solutions Console, click Servers > Server Types > server_type.
      2. In the list of servers, select your server and click the Restart button at the beginning of the table.
      3. Click the Refresh button and verify that all components are active.
    • For a cluster of Conference Managers, synchronize and restart the nodes as follows:
      1. In the Deployment Manager's Integrated Solutions Console, click System Administration > Node agents.
      2. Select all nodes in the cluster, and then click the Restart button at the beginning of the table.