A Few Quick Points on Domino 9, x64, and Linux

Bill Malchisky  March 25 2013 02:00:00 AM

IBM released Notes Domino 9 this week and it has been a firestorm of zeal, anticipation realized, fun tweets, community upgrades, and success stories overall. Included in the server code are two x86 Linux installation flavors for the first time. This allows one to run native Domino code in either i386 or x64 mode.

If you attended Linuxfest at IBM Connect 2013 with myself, Wes Morgan and Daniel Nashed, my BLUG 2013 session, or my private Domino training sessions since December, you were ahead of the curve.

Regardless, here are a few quick points to help ensure things go smoothly with using Domino 9 on Linux.
1. It is absolutely imperative that you install the correct code with the correct OS; thus, if you have an i386 OS, you must install the corresponding i386 code, or you'll get unhelpful errors; the same is true for the respective x64 combination
2. When you unpack the tarball, you'll notice that IBM --- to their credit --- created a new directory to help keep the code straight: "linux64"; all of the x64 Domino code will extract under this subdirectory now
3. Due to the inclusion of the new Ubuntu MultiArch design enhancements matured in version 12.04 LTS, Domino 9 will install onto an Ubuntu server. Know that if you want support from IBM, you still need to use Red Hat (RHEL) or SUSE (SLES)
4. You must upgrade your existing Domino Linux servers to RHEL 6, as RHEL 5 is no longer supported with the release of Domino 9

Notations
a. Upgrading is easy with my long-standing partition tip to ALWAYS put /opt and /local in separate file systems before installing Domino; if you did that, upgrading the OS is quite trivial
b. If you haven't, take the time now to partition these directories with your RHEL 6 upgrade/installation
c. I recommend using multiple partitions even with a VM installation

5.  Ensure SELinux is disabled; if you installed the graphics, then XGL as well
6. Additional tips can be found in the "Lotus Application Introduction" section of my BLUG 2013 slide deck located here
7. IBM Notes and Domino 9 Operating System Requirements, patch levels, and support notations technote is located here

Enjoy and happy computing!

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