HCL Ambassador: 2021 class announced

 HCL has just announced the Ambassador class 2021 and I'm on the list , thanks !

It will be a pleasure and an honor to be in the family another year with a lot of friends and some new entries , congrats all !!

I need to close this blog post with 2 big special thanks:

• Factor-y : like every year , we have continued to work on interesting projects that give me the opportunity to grow and a continue reason to study test and play with high level tech (congrats to Daniele Vistalli  for his HCL Ambassador confirm! )
• Let's connect team :  thanks for the opportunity you gave me to be part of a group of friends and be part of the organization of an awesome user group (congrats to Maria, Jan and Wannes for the confirmation of their HCL Ambassador status for 2021).

HCL Connections 7.0 available for download

HCL Connections it's available for download on flexnet

From my point of view this are the principal updates of this release:

• Community templates: now it's possible to have an advanced template managements also with import export of the templates
• integration with MS Teams and MS Sharepoint
• PDF export button to save wiki pages
• Ansible playbook availability to have standard and automated setup ( upcoming webinar is scheduled on this topic ) 

Click this link for the complete what's new list .

Docs  is available here , here the system requirements..

In-place upgrade from 6.5 to 7.0 it's available with no needs to install and configure new enviroment.

Currently this release is available only for on-prem setup, the MT Version for HCL MSP will be released in the future.

Below you can see an HCL presentation of the new feature during last  LetsConnect event in September.

NOTE: this setup is containing only the English language . Multi language package will be released next month (Jan 2021).

HCL Connections V7 and Ansible , interesting webinar announced

As you probably know Ansible is an open-source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool enabling infrastructure as code.

HCL has announced the availability of a set of Ansible playbooks to guarantee an easy, repeatable and secure setup of the new upcoming Connections version. 

During the last year I worked hard on a set of Ansible playbooks for same reasons  about Connections MT for Factor-y MSP services. 

Having a set of playbooks released directly from HCL will be a great step ahead and I can't wait to use it. 

During last LetsConnect event I've also had the confirm this scripts will be available on a public GitHub repository so the community should be able to contribute and improve the script in case of needs, excellent ! 

HCL has announced a technical webinar "HCL Connections with Ansible Scripts Technical Webinar"

scheduled for Wed, Dec 9, 2020 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CET , where we will be finally able to know more about it.

Today was a software release date ! New FP2 available for Domino/Notes 11.0.1 and Traveler 11.0.2

 Today HCL has released the new FP2 for Domino/Notes and the new Traveler 11.0.2 .

As usual , a good list of bug fixes are included with some new functionality and support like the official support for macOS BigSur and the support of MySQL for the Traveler High Availability.

To read the whole info about this releases click here for Domino/Notes and here for Traveler

How to create and manage an SSL certificate inside a kdb file from command line

Today I was working for one of my HCL DX customers and one of the tasks needed was change the SSL certificate used by the IBM HTTP Server.

During past days I have generated and tested the certificate directly from Ikeman utility using an IHS 8.5.5.FP16  without issue but on a 8.5.5 OLD FixPack server starting the service I was getting

Configuration Failed

After checks on IBM docs I saw several upgrades related to KDB during the years and Fixpacks so I decided to try to create a new KDB directly from this 8.5.5  old FP server. 

I had also a certificate copy in .p12 format and I decided to use it into a new kdb file generated on the server using the gskcapicmd utility , available into the HTTPServer bin folder.

This command will create you a new kdb file with a password stashed into a .sth file

 

./gskcapicmd -keydb -create -pw yourPassword -stash -db ../cert/Certificate.kdb

now we can import the .p12 certificate

./gskcapicmd -cert -import -pw yourPassword -target ../cert/Certificate.kdb -file /tmp/certificate.p12    -type pkcs12

This command can be used to verifify the KDB file 

 ./gskcapicmd -cert  -list -db ../cert/Certificato.kdb -stashed

We was getting this output with 2 root intermediate certificate and the host ssl certificate

Certificates found

* default, - personal, ! trusted, # secret key

!       "CN=CertificateAuth Global Root CA, OU=www.CertificateAuth.com, O=CertificateAuth Inc, C=US"

!       "CN=CertificateAuth SHA2 Secure Server CA, O=CertificateAuth Inc, C=US"

-       fqdn.server.com

this means the kdb was build but we need to set the host ssl certificate as default with the following command

./gskcapicmd -cert -setdefault -db ../cert/Certificate.kdb -stashed -label fqdn.server.com

now we could repeat the -cert -list command and verify again the kdb

Certificates found

* default, - personal, ! trusted, # secret key

!       "CN=CertificateAuth Global Root CA, OU=www.CertificateAuth.com, O=CertificateAuth Inc, C=US"

!       "CN=CertificateAuth SHA2 Secure Server CA, O=CertificateAuth Inc, C=US"

*-       fqdn.server.com

the   * before the fqnd.server.com means this kdb could be used with the right certificate.

To obtain more infos about gskcapicmd command please read the IBM doc. 

HCL Connections 7.0 , some info from Let's Connect virtual event

During the last 2 days of September 2020 Let's Connect run his first virtual event where HCL has showed some nice news and anticipation of the upcoming release 7.0.

This release should be released during December 2020 for the on-prem installations and during the first month of the 2021 to the MSP for cloud setup.

Some of my preferred new features are the new tailored experience with the new templates, with also the ability to have import/export and the integrations with MS Teams and MS SharePoint. 

Another nice to have feature is the availability of the PDF export from Wikis and Forum, available also from mobile.

The upgrade process from previous release will be smooth because it will be possible to install it as inplace upgrade on top of the 6.5 CR1 like a normal CR.  


If you are interested so see more news from the event  you could check all the event slides here , or check the session registration on the Let's Connect YouTube channel .

If  you like to touch Connections 7.0 with your hands you could gain the access to the preview environment here.

HCL Connections 7.0 - Pre-registration for the Connections 7 Preview is now open

 HCL has just opened the pre-registration for a preview of HCL Connections 7.0 !

This preview will be hosted and managed by HCL and this is a brief description of the purpose of this preview:

You’ll be able to try out the new tailored experience Community features, integration with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, and more. You will also have a chance to provide feedback to the development team and get your questions answered.

This is the registration form : https://hclsw.co/cxn-7-pre

I encourage all the Connections users to register for the preview and give the feedback to HCL to help everybody to have the best HCL Connections version ever !