Domino® server registration

Before you install and set up additional servers, you must register them. In effect, registering a server adds the server to the system. The server registration process creates a Server document for the server in the Domino® Directory and creates a server ID. After registering and installing a server, you use the server setup program to obtain a copy of the Domino® Directory for the new server and to set up the server to run particular services and tasks -- for example, the HTTP service, the Mail Router, and so on.

The server registration user interface automatically removes leading spaces and trailing spaces from passwords. Passwords cannot begin or end with a space. This also applies to certifier registration and user registration.

Before you register servers, plan and understand your company's hierarchical name scheme. The name scheme defines which certifier ID to use when you register each new server. In addition, make sure that you have access to each certifier ID, know its password, and have created ID recovery information for it.

If you have decided to use the Domino® server-based certification authority (CA), you can register servers without access to the certifier ID file and its password.

The registration server, which is the server that initially stores changes to documents in the Domino® Directory until the Domino® Directory replicates with other servers, must be up and running on the network. To register servers from your workstation, you must have access to the registration server and have at least Author access with the Server Creator and Group Modifier roles in the ACL of the Domino® Directory.

When you register a server, Domino® does the following:

  • Creates a server ID for the new server and certifies it with the certifier ID
  • Creates a Server document for the new server in the Domino® Directory
  • Encrypts and attaches the server ID to the Server document and saves the ID on a disk or in a file on the server
  • Adds the server name to the LocalDomainServers group in the Domino® Directory
  • Creates an entry for the new server in the Certification Log (certlog.nsf)

If you have a Domino® server-based CA for issuing Internet certificates, you can choose to configure the new server to support TLS connections by providing a server key ring password and the server's host name. Then, Domino® does the following:

  • The registration process creates a certificate request in the Administration Requests database (admin4.nsf) to be processed by the server's Internet CA
  • The registration process creates a Create TLS key ring request in admin4.nsf
  • After you set up and start the new server, and the Create TLS key ring request has replicated to it, the Create TLS key ring request creates the server key ring file and an Enable TLS ports request for the administration server of the Domino® Directory
  • The Enable TLS ports request enables all the TLS ports on the new server and creates a Monitor TLS status request for the new server
  • The Monitor TLS status request restarts all of the Internet tasks currently running on the new server so that the tasks will accept TLS connections
Note: You must use the Domino® Administrator if you want to use this server registration process to configure a new server for TLS.