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Administering
This documentation provides information about the administration tools for HCL Domino.
Administering with Domino Administrator
This documentation provides information about the administration tools for managing and monitoring servers and databases.
Managing databases
Topics in this section describe how to set up and manage Domino® databases.
Backup and restore
As of Domino 12, functionality to back up and restore Notes databases and their associated transaction logs is provided with Domino servers.
Running backupvss as a non-admin and handling privileged snapshot operations
When Domino runs with non-administrative user account, the associated backupvss process also runs without administrative privileges. Consequently, operations that require elevated permissions—such as mounting or unmounting snapshots for autorecovery—fail due to insufficient access rights.

Administering
This documentation provides information about the administration tools for HCL Domino.
- Administering with AdminCentral
  The AdminCentral application (admincentral.nsf) is automatically created by adminP on the Domino administration server. You can open AdminCentral directly from your Notes Standard or Nomad web client, without the need to start Domino Administrator. This application provides a simplified and easy-to-use way of managing fully functional Notes users and groups in a Domino deployment.
- Administering with Domino Administrator
  This documentation provides information about the administration tools for managing and monitoring servers and databases.
  - Administration tools
    Topics in this section describe the tools you can use to administer a Domino® server.
  - Managing users
    The Administration Process helps you manage users by automating many of the associated administrative tasks. For example, if you rename a user, the Administration Process automates changing the name throughout databases in the Notes® domain by generating and carrying out a series of requests, which are posted in the Administration Requests database.
  - Monitoring servers
    This section describes how to use the tools and features that help you monitor a Domino® system.
  - Managing servers
    Manage Domino® servers by performing any of these tasks.
  - Managing databases
    Topics in this section describe how to set up and manage Domino® databases.
    - Database design, management, and administration
      The tasks involved with application design, database design, database management, and Domino® system administration may overlap, depending on the size of your organization and the structure of job responsibilities. In some organizations, an application developer may be responsible for both application and database design, while in others, a database manager may handle all database design and management tasks. In addition, database management overlaps with Domino system administration.
    - Domino on-disk structure (ODS)
      Domino on-disk structure (ODS) refers to the file format of a database. Each release of HCL Domino® and Notes has a default ODS version for databases. A new release may offer a new ODS version that provides database enhancements not available with earlier ODS versions.
    - Increase the document summary data limit to 16 MB
      Starting with Domino 9.0.1 FP8, you can increase the document summary data limit on databases to 16 MB. Databases must be at ODS 52 or higher.
    - Organizing databases on a server
      You can organize databases in folders.
    - Backup and restore
      As of Domino 12, functionality to back up and restore Notes databases and their associated transaction logs is provided with Domino servers.
      - Backup and restore components
        Backup and restore includes the following components.
      - Transaction logging with backup and restore
        Domino transaction logging is required on a Domino server that performs backup and restore.
      - Snapshot backups
        You can integrate third-party snapshot backup solutions with Domino backup and restore.
      - Snapshot backups with Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writer
        Beginning with HCL Domino 12.0.2, Domino provides a native Windows VSS writer for snapshot backups. VSS writers are designed for application-aware VSS snapshots.
      - Running backupvss as a non-admin and handling privileged snapshot operations
        When Domino runs with non-administrative user account, the associated backupvss process also runs without administrative privileges. Consequently, operations that require elevated permissions—such as mounting or unmounting snapshots for autorecovery—fail due to insufficient access rights.
      - DAOS restore
        Domino backup and restore can restore missing or corrupted DAOS attachment objects (NLOs) if they are backed up by a separate DAOS file-level file backup that is Domino-aware.
      - Multi-byte character support
        All backup and restore operations are based on LMBCS (Lotus Multi Byte Character Set). The Backup and Restore server tasks are fully LMBCS aware.
      - FAQs
        Some frequently asked questions about backup and restore.
      - Creating the Backup database
        To create the Backup database (dominobackup.nsf) run the Backup server task.
      - Quick start
        These steps provide a simple example of backing up and restoring log.nsf using file system commands.
      - Completing the Global Configuration document
        The Global Configuration document provides some default settings for backup and restore.
      - Command configuration
        Command is a general concept that refers to configuring backup, restore, and prune operations. There are several types of commands, each of which supports the same options. The commands for backup, restore, and prune operations must match.
      - Setting up backup and restore
        Configure settings related to database backup, database restore, and database prune (removal) of older backed up files.
      - Running the Backup server task
        Back up databases by scheduling the Backup server task to run through a Program document. You can also run Backup at the Domino console using the load backup command.
      - Increasing the default backup timeout limit
        By default, backup of a database times out after 15 minutes. If you have a slow backup architecture or large databases, consider increasing the limit.
      - Restoring databases
        Restore databases from the Database Inventory view of the Backup database. Restoring a database invokes the Restore server task.
      - Enabling third-party restore
        You can integrate the Domino backup database with a third-party restore application to leverage the Domino backup database user-friendly restore interface.
      - Disaster recovery
    - Attachment consolidation
      The Domino® server employs the Domino Attachment and Object Service (DAOS) to save significant space at the file level by sharing data identified as identical between databases (applications) on the same server.
    - Full-text indexes for single databases
      You can create full-text indexes to allow users to quickly search for information in databases. To search in a database, users enter a word or phrase in the search bar of the database to locate all documents containing the word or phrase.
    - Controlling attachment indexing on servers
      Use the notes.ini setting FT_INDEX_ATTACHMENTS on a server to control full-text indexing of attachments for all databases on a server.
    - Database libraries
      You can create a database library that contains databases that pertain to a specific collection of users or to a specific topic. For example, a corporate database library might include all databases that deal with corporate policies and procedures, and a marketing database library might include databases that are useful to the marketing staff.
    - Database catalogs
      A database catalog provides a list of all databases on a server. You use the server Catalog task to create a database catalog. The Catalog task bases the catalog file (CATALOG.NSF) on the CATALOG.NTF template and adds the appropriate entries to the catalog's ACL.
    - The Files tab in the Domino® Administrator
      The Files tab in the Domino® Administrator provides an easy way for you to manage files in the Domino data folder.
    - Replicating unread marks
      Unread marks can be replicated for selected databases, most notably mail databases, by using the advanced database properties from the Domino® Administrator or from the database properties box. When you enable the replication of unread marks on mail databases, users can read their mail from a workstation on ServerA, and after replication, can read their mail from a workstation on ServerB, with unread mail clearly delineated from mail that has previously been read.
    - Using indirect files to run database maintenance tasks
      You can use indirect files to run the same maintenance task multiple times, resulting in significant time savings. The fixup, compact, updall, design, convert, and replicate tasks support using indirect files. You can also create batch files or scripts that run several maintenance tasks serially against different indirect files to help complete them quickly. If you have multiple CPUs, you can run the same maintenance tasks against multiple indirect files so they run concurrently. It is recommended you only run as many concurrent maintenance tasks as you have CPUs, otherwise they will start competing for CPU resources and can take longer to complete.
    - Updating database indexes and views
      A view index is an internal filing system that Notes® uses to build the list of documents to display in a database view or folder.
    - Synchronizing databases with master templates
      To use a consistent design for multiple databases, database designers can associate databases or elements within databases with a master template.
    - Fixing corrupted databases
      Corrupted databases don't occur frequently when you use transaction logging. When you use transaction logging to log changes to databases, a server automatically uses the transaction log to restore and recover databases after a system failure -- for example, after server failures or power failures. If a disk failure occurs, you use the transaction log along with a certified backup utility to restore and recover the databases.
    - Moving databases
      It may be necessary to move a database from one server to another -- for example, to distribute databases evenly among servers. If there are replicas of the database, the server to which you move the database should have the appropriate Connection documents to replicate the database to other servers that store replicas. If you're moving a database to a server in a cluster, replication between the server and other servers in the cluster that have replicas of the database occurs without Connection documents.
    - Using load convert to convert non-mail databases
      You can use the server's mail convert utility to convert non-mail databases to another type of non-mail database. Non-mail databases are all databases that do not have a $Inbox folder.
    - Redirecting client references to databases
      You can redirect Notes® client references from deleted or moved databases to a database replica that you specify.
    - Running a database analysis
      A database analysis reveals changes in documents, user activity, and other details such as replication data.

Running backupvss as a non-admin and handling privileged snapshot operations

When Domino runs with non-administrative user account, the associated backupvss process also runs without administrative privileges. Consequently, operations that require elevated permissions—such as mounting or unmounting snapshots for autorecovery—fail due to insufficient access rights.

To resolve this issue, a dedicated Windows service was developed to handle only the snapshot mount and unmount operations. This service is designed to run with administrative privileges and must be started by a user with administrator rights. By delegating these specific tasks to a privileged service, the snapshot operations required for autorecovery can be executed reliably, even when Domino itself runs as a non-admin user.

Running the helper service

To run the helper service, execute the service binary with the mandatory -p argument, which specifies the path where the service log will be stored.

If no additional command is provided after the -p argument, the service automatically installs and registers itself.

Example:

vssadmin_service.exe -p "C:\Domino\Data"

Supported command arguments

The following table outlines the supported command-line arguments for the service executable.

Note:

The service executable must be run with administrative privileges. The -p argument is mandatory and should specify the path where the service log will be stored.

Table 1. List of commands and their descriptions
Command	Description
-i / -install	Installs the service.
-u / -uninstall	Uninstalls the service.
-s / -start	Starts the installed service.
x / -stop	Stops the installed service.
-t / -status	Displays the status of the installed service.
-r / -restart	Restarts the installed service.
-h / -?	Displays the help message.

Example:

vssadmin_service.exe -p "C:\Domino\Data" -i
vssadmin_service.exe -p "C:\Domino\Data" -install

Troubleshooting

If the vssadmin_service is not installed or not running, one of the following errors is displayed. To resolve this issue, install or start the service as appropriate before taking a VSS snapshot.

In normal mode

In verbose/debug mode