Daniel Nashed's Blog

Notes, Domino and Traveler 14.5 EA1 is available -- See what’s new

The first 14.5 Early Access code drop has been release!
You find detailed information of what is new in Early Access product documentation and there is already a 14.5 EAP forum  -> https://hclsw.co/domino-14-5-eap-forum

See the following links:
https://help.hcl-software.com/domino/14.5.0/admin/wn_145_ea1.html
https://help.hcl-software.com/notes/14.5.0/client/whatsnew_notes.html
https://help.hcl-software.com/dom_designer/14.5.0/basic/wn_14.5_ea1.html
https://help.hcl-software.com/dom_designer/14.5.0/basic/wn_generalupdates.html

Release Notes:

https://support.hcltechsw.com/csm?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0115513


Here are my personal highlights and important changes:

Update to OpenJDK 21

Even I am not a big Java fan, I find the update and important and impressive achievement along with other updated packages.


DAOSTune Estimation Tool

The new servertask replaces the old stand-alone DAOS Estimator.
It's completely rewritten, dramatically faster with easier to understand output.
There are also very flexible configuration options and different output options.
The new estimator is useful for pre-DAOS enablement and also to fine tune DAOS configurations.


Domino SNMP Agent for Linux

SNMP is a quite old technology, but is still in use by some customers for monitoring.
Domino 14.5 now ships with the same SNMP systemd service, the Domino start script provides


Extension Manager Changes

For security reasons, extension managers are only loaded from the Domino binary directory, Windows and Windows system directory. But not the path!
In addition you can add a search directory for Extension Managers.

I would recommend to keep extension managers in the Domino binary directory anyway. User writable directories are not a good idea from security point of view.
But this change might impact existing configurations, so there is a ini to allow alternate and additional search path.


DAOS repair enhancements

There are new repair options for DAOS NLO files.
This finally completes what has been started in Domino 10.x.

• Repairing a single .nlo file
• Repairing all .nlo files for a database
• Dynamic repair of .nlo files

Domino OIDC Server

Now you can use Domino also as a OIDC provider.
I have tested it with a configuration on the same server being an OIDC provider in one internet site and a OIDC client on another internet site including passkey authentication on the OIDC server side.
Of course this was just a test configuration. But it opens the door for many interesting use cases to integrate Domino with 3rd party applications.


Domino AutoInstall for Windows and Linux

Probably one of the most complex and interesting features in Domino 14.5 is the autoinstall functionality.
Currently you can only update from Domino 14.5 EA1 to Domino 14.5 EA1 for testing.
But you can expect to update from EA1 to EA2 in the next code drop.

The functionality is feature complete for Domino release installs.
After distributing the software via autoupdate a manual install will lay down the autoinstall binary.

The autoinstall binary is a separate binary working hand in hand with the autoupdate server task to update servers.

• On Linux it is a SUID enabled binary to acquire root privileges.
• On Windows it is implemented as a new Windows service running with the system account (because since Domino 14.0 the server is usually with an unprivileged user.

Domino 14.0 and 14.0 FP1 did build the base for AutoUpdate and AutoInstall.
Domino 14.5 is bringing the full AutoUpdate & Install functionality.

The autoupdate.nsf software list will be automatically updated and contains the 14.5 EA1 software.
If you have the feature enabled, you can use it to download software directly from MHS portal.

But you will need to first log into https://my.hcltechsw.com/ to accept the beta license.


There are more features...

My post mainly focuses on the Domino server side.

There are many more detailed feature enhancements on the server and also the client side.
And this is just a first code drop...


Domino Container Update

The Domino container community project has been updated to support Domino 14.5 EA1 and also Traveler 14.5 EA1.
Please note that the current Leap Version is not support for Domino 14.5 EA1 and Traveler requires the matching 14.5 EA1 version. Older versions will not work.

The build script contains a new menu item for building the 14.5 EA1 container.

-- Daniel

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