Admin for Developers

I definitely NOT an Administrator. I occasionally become acutely aware of that fact whenever I have to do something Admin-y.

Now, I am not completely inept. For my first couple of years in IT, I actually did some basic administration for our Domino server: create users, manage mailboxes, etc. However, I only know what I’ve been taught. In other words, my admin said “create a new user, here, this is how you do it”. See, I am not completely inept, just mostly inept.

So, imagine my delight when I saw Jess Stratton’s Lotusphere session “Administration for the Developer: Build and Secure Your Own IBM Lotus Domino Server Playground in an Hour!”. Fabulous, just what I need and now I can do it on my own. No need to bother the admin. Great! She made it look so easy, too. Her slide deck was terrific with step by step instructions. Yeah!

Of course, I come back from Lotusphere (and back to reality) and get busy with work, so I don’t get around to trying it until this week. Okay, download VMWare. Got it. Hmm, which VMWare product? There are approximately 500 of them (I’m exagerrating a little). Well, let’s see, this Workstation thing looks good, and I can download a free trial, let’s give that a go…downloading…installing…hey, look at that! It created an image of the computer it’s installed on. Fantastic. Jess said we could use Windows 2000 since it’s free and Domino 8.5 server works on it. But, look VMWare Workstation made a virtual machine of my XP workstation. We have the licensing, so I’ll just go with that. [Mistake #1]*.

Okay, that worked, let’s install the Domino server…installing…pretty…hey, that worked! Woohoo! Now, go to host machine, launch Notes client, make a connection doc, and a location doc. Umm. Hello? Nothing. Crap.

I then dig out Jess’ presentation slides. Prior to that I had decided to ignore them, since, you know, I know what I’m doing! [Mistake #2] Flip through the slides. Oh look, she recommended pinging between the host and guest BEFORE installing Domino. Hmm. Oh well, no biggie. I’ll just ping now. Ping from guest to host. All good. Ping from host to guest. Nothing. Crap. So then I start playing with the Network Adapter setting on the virtual machine, thinking maybe I just have the wrong setting. Which each time (I think) requires me to shut down and restart the virtual machine. Since I installed Domino as a service, this means I get to watch my Domino server start up and have to shut it down each time. [Mistake #3].

Still no go. Okay, next I Google my problem. No one ever seems to have a problem pinging the guest from the host. Lots of people have problems the other way, and lots of people have solutions, but nothing for my problem. Crap. Again.

Finally, something goes off in my brain that I remember something somewhere about XP and ip addresses. Oh yeah, and Jess said she uses Windows 2000. Hmm. Let’s try that. Dig out old Windows 2000 Server CD. Install…hey! Look at that! PING! PING! PING again, just because I can! Success. Now I install my Domino Server. Ah, look at that. A thing of beauty.

Launch the Notes client. Make a new connection doc and a new location doc (because now I’ve moved on to a new machine, new installs, etc. out of sheer frustration). And…crap. Still can’t see my server. Ping again. Yep, that still works.

Finally, I ask my admin. What the heck am I doing wrong? He comes over, tells me to put the ip address in where the connection doc asks for the server NAME. Not the tab that asks for the Server Address, I had that right, but the tab that asks for the Server Name. I do that, and sadly (because I am now embarrassed in front of the admin, who thinks I’m an idiot), but happily…it works! I make a joke about how long this took me and the following conversation occurs:

Admin: Why didn’t you ask me?
Me: Well, it was really the whole thing about XP and the virtual machine ip address that took so long.
Admin: Oh yeah, XP [blah blah] ip address [blah blah] I could have told you that wouldn’t work.

Sigh.

Moral of the story: Don’t use XP for your virtual machines and read the instructions.



*Admins may argue my FIRST mistake was actually trying to do anything adminstrative to begin with, since I am just a lowly developer. ;)