Daniel Nashed's Blog

Domino 14.5 Design task comes with some pretty useful new functionality

First of all the design task is now leveraged for updating all system databases during template setup for a new release.
The only important detail to know is that the database needs to have the admin server set to that server.

The background is that an automated process should not run wild on all replicas in your domain trying to upgrade the design multiple times.

There is also a new list of system databases automatically maintained: dominosystemdbs.ind.
The file is updated when the server starts and is leveraged by the design task.
I blogged about it before, but now here it is live in action.

The design task now writes a separate log file IBM_TECHNICAL_SUPPORT/design_upgrade.log.
The file is automatically rotated like other system files with a date and cleaned up like other system logs when configured.

In this file you find additional information like if the admin server is set right or what got updated.
The file also contains run-time information per database and also information about the template version update.

In my case I had to run it again manually after server update, because my admin server was set to a different server for autoupdate.nsf.

Probably you don't want to look into the file on the server. Here is another option you might like.
You can run the design task on all system databases ( -sd ) and get them updated + get a mail with the log file ( -mt ).

If you want to use the standard design task operation only taking into account the admin server settings of the design task, just run the -sd switch.
In case you want the same behavior template setup uses, you can specify the new -adm option.
This would run the design task only on system database (or in general database) with the admin server set to this server also if the "Refresh on admin server only" option not set in the database.

In any case you would get warnings in design_upgrade.log if no admin server is set or "Refresh on admin server only" is not set.

Here is what I just did to upgrade my autoupdate.nsf design after I realized the admin server was wrong and I corrected it.

lo design -sd -mt "daniel nashed"

Refreshing design [autoupdate.nsf]
Updating 'ac Download' into database 'Domino Auto Update' from template 'Domino Auto Update'
Updating 'ac Edit' into database 'Domino Auto Update' from template 'Domino Auto Update'
Updating 'ac Enable' into database 'Domino Auto Update' from template 'Domino Auto Update'
Updating 'ac Formula Check' into database 'Domino Auto Update' from template 'Domino Auto Update'
...
Design refresh completed (1 sec) [autoupdate.nsf] 14.5 (02.01.2025 21:21:08) -> 14.5 (10.04.2025 16:57:53)


Mail example from production today




New Design Task Switches in Domino 14.5


-sd        Refresh design of System Databases in dominosystemdbs.ind.
-adm       Refresh design only if current server is Administration Server of database.
-mt name   Mail design update log to the Internet Address name.

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