Also, to  run Connections on Linux you must use WebSphere Application server. Now, I don’t mind WSAS per-se, but it is a massive system, that ends up using more resources you would want.

After I got the operating system up and running, I prepared myself for installation. I installed Sametime and Sametime Gateway on Linux many times before, but this was a new experience all together. As we use IBM partner sites to download I needed to upload files to the server, decompress them and run each application one by one. 

First attempt… failure. Why? Well, according to online help, I missed a step at pre-install and some other apparently required OS applications  were not installed. After much fiddling, I first located those and install them. Then removed installation and tried again.

Second attempt… failure. Apparently, one must install an upgrade for WSAS, as the one included when downloading is way too old. OK, so I patch WSAS, remove the installation and run installation process again.

Third attempt… failure. This time, I missed the create databases step. So, I removed installation and tried again. 

Fourth attempt… success. Finally. And it worked too .

Now, as I said, I am not exactly a noob when it comes to installing Lotus apps on Linux, but the thing that always bothered me with STGW and now Lotus Connections is that there is no wizard that would guide you through the installation. It would simplify things a lot or at least, prevent me to miss some necessary steps on the way.

Alternatives

After all this time wasting process, I started to wander myself. Is integration with Lotus environment really worth the hassle? I mean, you can set up Apache server (which is easier to maintain that WSAS and definitely less resource consuming), install open source forums (e.g. phpBB), wiki (e.g. MediaWiki), bookmark and link sharing and a project management tool. Granted, it will never be Lotus integrated, but it would save you loads of time, money and resources.

What you can do, if you have sufficient rights (otherwise, ask your admin to do it), is to add the following line into sudoers file:

Defaults:your_notes_user !requiretty

Replace your_notes_user with username that can run notes, save it and that is it.

How do you do that?

1. Login to your linux machine
2. In console type visudo and press enter
3. Edit the file by pressing either i or a vi command
4. Go to the end of the file and add above mentioned line
5. Save the file using :wq

#!/bin/bash
#
# /etc/init.d/domino
#
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          Domino
# Required-Start:    $syslog $remote_fs $network
# Required-Stop:     $syslog $remote_fs $network
# Default-Start:     3 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 2 6
# Short-Description: Domino providing IBM Lotus Domino Server
# Description:       Start Domino to provide an IBM Lotus Domino Server
### END INIT INFO
# 

. /etc/init.d/functions
DATADIR=/opt/ibm/notesdata
RETVAL=0

start() {
	echo -n "Starting Domino Server"
	sudo -u notes /opt/ibm/lotus/bin/server "=$DATADIR/notes.ini" -jc -c &
	RETVAL=$?

	# Remember status and be verbose
	echo
	[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ]
	return $RETVAL
}

stop() {
	echo -n "Shutting down Domino Server"
	sudo -u notes /opt/ibm/lotus/bin/server "=$DATADIR/notes.ini" -q
	RETVAL=$?

	# Remember status and be verbose
	RETVAL=0   # have to force this since since there's no way of really
                        # knowing
	echo
	[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ]
	return $RETVAL
}

restart() {
	# Stop the service and regardless of whether it was running or not,
        # start it again.
	stop
	start
}

case "$1" in
    start)
	start
	;;
    stop)
	stop
	;;
    restart)
	restart
	;;
    *)
 echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
 exit 1
 ;;
esac
exit $RETVAL