What is IBM Notes Traveler? Where do you get it? How do you install it? The most important question is, why do you need it? All answers given below.

IBM Notes Traveler is an application that provides two-way, over-the-air synchronization of email, contacts, and calendar between IBM Domino servers and wireless handheld devices. If you're an existing Notes/Domino customer, it's a free entitlement, allowing you to extend your existing messaging and collaboration infrastructure to include mobile devices.

IBM i is an ideal platform for Traveler, and actually Domino for that matter, because it provides simplified management of servers on a single partition with less maintenance, integrated backup, integrated DB2, and no need for multiple physical systems. The security, scalability, stability, and simplicity of IBM i makes migration and consolidation of servers like Traveler to IBM i a smart and cost-effective move in any organization. If you're a Notes shop and looking to expand your mobile arsenal, then Traveler is by far the easiest and fastest way to do that. If you already have Traveler running on Windows, what better way to simplify your environment than decommissioning those servers and moving that workload to a real server: IBM i on Power Systems.

So how do we do this?

Since Traveler runs on a Domino 9 server, you need to install Domino 9 on IBM i. Domino 9 is supported on IBM i 6.1 and 7.1, which is yet another great reason to upgrade from 5.4. You'll also need to download IBM Notes Traveler as it's a separate product.

Sign into IBM Passport Advantage and download the following:

• IBM Domino Server V9.0 for IBM i      (CIBM7EN)
• IBM Notes Traveler V9.0 for IBM i      (CIF86ML)

If you have older Domino servers installed on your IBM i partition, you can install Domino 9 and create a Domino server for Traveler while the other Domino servers are still running. The process of installing a new Domino server can be found here.

For the purposes of this tip, we'll assume you're going to set up HTTPs on your Domino server and that you'll create a dedicated IP interface for it. This ensures you use a standard port for HTTPs (443) to make it easy for your users. Also, I recommend that you set up a DNS entry in Active Directory so that your users can get to https://mobile.domain.com/traveler instead of an IP address. Keep it clean and easy, right?

Also, when accessing Traveler from behind a firewall, you'll have to either create a NAT rule on your firewall with a public DNS address or use VPN on your mobile devices in order to access the Traveler server.

Also, please make a note that when you install Domino 9 you must set an environment variable for a Domino Messaging, Utility, or Enterprise installation using the following command where 0=Messaging, 1=Utility, and 2=Enterprise:

ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(DOMINO_INSTALL_TYPE) VALUE('0') REPLACE(*YES)

Once you have a Domino server created, you can begin the process of installing Traveler. Once you've downloaded and extracted (i.e., unzipped) the binary file for Traveler called QNTSINSTF, you need to get that file over to a save file on IBM i.

Create a save file in QGPL with the steps below:

CRTSAVF QGPL/QNTSINSTF

Then start an FTP session to IBM i and push the QNTSINSTF file over to IBM i.

ftp myibmi.mydomain.com

username

password

bin

put QNTSINSTF QGPL/QNTSINSTF

quit

IBM Notes Traveler is actually option 20 of Domino 9 (5733LD9), so you need to do a RSTLICPGM to install it. When prompted, accept the software agreement by pressing shift+F2.

RSTLICPGM LICPGM(5733LD9) DEV(*SAVF) LNG(2924) OPTION(20) SAVF(MYLIB/QNTSINSTF)

Now we can add the Traveler server to our new Domino server called MOBILE with the ADDNTSDOM command. End the Domino server and run the following command. Note that we're specifying the Domino server name, the external access URL for Traveler, and the IP address Traveler is going to use.

ADDNTSDOM SERVER(mobile) EXTACCURL('https://mobile.domain.com/traveler') HOSTIP('192.168.1.15')

Once the command has stopped running, you can start your Domino server. You'll see Traveler services start up in the Domino console.

You should now be able to access your server through a web browser on a mobile device. Once you've authenticated to it using your Domino user id and Internet password, Traveler will recognize your device type and you can proceed with setting up the device for mail, contacts, and calendar.

Steve Pitcher works with iTech Solutions, an IBM Premier Business Partner. He is a specialist in IBM i and IBM Power Systems solutions since 2001. Feel free to contact him directly This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..