Tuesday, April 6, 2021

SnTT - When you need OS Acces, but DON'T Have it, OPENNTF to the Rescue

 

I should tag this as #HCLAmbassadorTips, but that is so #2020.

Picked up a new client from my home state with a small but necessary business, which they run on their HCL Domino application.

The problem started when I realized I needed to scrape their old website from a hosting provider and then put it under HCL Domino.

Simple enough to get the site files and fodlers, but when I went to add the site to Domino realized I did not have RDP/VPN/FTP access to their server at the OS level.

What do I do?

As it turns out, there have been a few tools that existed that do this, but being an Admin and not a Developer, I never needed them and never looked into it.

I ended up finding a solution at Openntf.org with a project called Remote File Browser.

It was posted in 2010, still works, and I am using an R12 beta client to work with it on my end and the R11 server on the customer side.

It does just what I needed:

  • Create a folder
  • Delete files
  • Move Files
  • Upload file
  • Download files
Did you note an extra letter between the last 2 items? It seems you can download multiple files, but you can only upload 1 file at a time.

Okay, a bit tedious. I had about 40 files, but if I needed to edit the notes.ini or to change the SSL keys(if you are not using LE4D) and did not have access at the time, this does the trick.

Follow the instructions for it, copy it to the server, sign it, assign an ACL and then start browsing the server files.

Created a folder under domino\data\domino\html and then moved all the files.

Edit the Internet Site Document, so it knows which directory to read from and which HTML file to use as the primary page and restart HTTP, and it works.

If you know of anything similar and is available, free or for a fee, include it in the comments or message me to include the other options for everyone.

The best part is I get to cancel a meeting for later today that was about access.