Well it’s been a busy few days for Domino Admins!
Unless you’ve been under a rock you’ll have noted HCL announced a critical routing issue for all Domino releases from Friday the 13th of December.
That is the place to look for all details on the issue. It’s been re-iterated elsewhere but please don’t speculate on workarounds other than to apply the fixes in the immediate aftermath – it’s not helpful.
Some observations on this:
- Getting the number of fixes developed, tested and released by HCL in the timeframe is a huge undertaking and is a credit to everyone involved.
- It’s mad that a bug can sit there undetected for 30 plus years.
- I’ve already seen that particularly in larger environments – it can be tricky to ascertain if servers will be affected and others not. Please, please – just apply the fix as soon as is practical to any server that has a possibility of routing mail. Don’t try to workaround.
- I always make “don’t make changes on Friday the 13th” jokes (Though no one actually made a change).This will only re-enforce that.
- This would have been an ideal candidate for an Auto Update service. I look forward to Domino 14.5 next year.
- Domino is and has always been stable and rock solid but having licenses with your vendor is crucial for maintenance on software you rely on.
- On some Windows Servers -you may get an old school “Notes/Domino processes may be running error” – anytime I’ve come across this on this HF it’s always been Windows Management Instrumentation service that has blocked it. You may need to either stop the service (and sub processes/services) or disable it completely and reboot before you can apply.
Cormac McCarthy – Domino People Ltd
John Detterline says:
Unfortunately, having a support contract in place isn’t proving to be beneficial to my client. HCL has declined to provide a fix for the Domino release and platform they are currently running. I understand the potential business reasons for not wanting to go to the expense of providing a fix, but HCL entered into a contract that presumably said they would provide such a fix should the need arise, not abiding by it is a negative mark in HCL’s support reputation ledger in my opinion.
Cormac McCarthy says:
Hi John,
Thanks for your feedback – can I enquire what version are you talking about?
Thanks,
Cormac
John Detterline says:
V9.01 FP10 on zLinux
Daniele Vistalli says:
9.0.1 is a version that requires ‘extended support’ contract. Customer with that contract in place got the fix. As ‘extended support’ is a ‘services’ contract and I read you are on ZLinux I would not be surprised if the contract you mention as a possibility just does not exist.
This bug made a lot of situations where ‘Domino just worked forever’ emerged and the customer risk management decisions where ‘let’s hope we never have a problem’.
If the extended support contract exists I would just expect HCL to honor it.
Cormac McCarthy says:
Agree with Daniele here.
There are extended support options available for R.9 (which if the customer has for their OS – HCL will honor and provide a fix I understand) – if they have standard support it’s for R.11, 12, and 14.
To be fair 9.0.1 has been out of support for quite some time at this point (and flagged for End of support for quite some time before that) I feel for your customer and at the same time running software that far out of support is at your own risk and the decision to stay on that release is the customers not HCLs. It is inevitable that something would eventually break. No one could have anticipated this particular bug but “a bug” is always likely at some point. Domino’s stability doesn’t mean it’s magic.
Bilal says:
Hello Everyone, I was restart to Router Task on our Domino server 9.0.1 at 13/12/2024. Of course, I had not yet heard of this situation. But we had no problems. My system is working very well. Does it want to make a turnover to HCL?
Cormac McCarthy says:
Hi Bilal, – likely one mail.box connecting straight to internet? Doesn’t seem to be directly effected by the change.
John says:
A restart of just the mail router would not expose the bug as it takes a restart of the Domino Server process. The Domino Server itself initializes much of the mail router configuration in shared memory that the mail router process reads from.
laurent says:
I do not have access on “My HCL Software Portal.” my domino server stopped working.
Is there another place where i can download the patch for V12.02 ?
Cormac McCarthy says:
Hi Laurent,
If you open a support ticket with HCL they should be able to help.
Thanks,
Cormac
laurent says:
I am not a subscriber of HCL , my subscription have expired last year
So I need to pay them because they have blocked everyone in the world , where is the logic here ?
They put a time bomb in their software , they block all users in the world, and they cannot give the patch for free ?
Steven Vaughan says:
Hi Laurent,
So you’re still using HCL’s software, you decided not to renew your subscription knowing you cannot get support/upgrades. That was your decision and this would be the same stance for any software vendor.
Nobody blocked anyone, it was a bug lying dormant for 30+ years. Why should you not pay HCL for usage of the software and support/upgrades? You don’t want to pay for the software but you expect free bug fixes and upgrades – where is the logic here?
Your last line “They put a time bomb in their software , they block all users in the world, and they cannot give the patch for free ?” is just not worth responding to.
laurent says:
i am using domino for almost 30 years now (1996), i paid probably more than 10 time the software
We can find everywhere many smtp router for free
But I am asking too much : a free fix for their mistake.
Because i think It is better to ask money for new good versions (if they can do this, which i doubt) rather than ask money because they did a huge mistake
Steven Vaughan says:
Hi Laurent,
Who did a huge mistake? This coding bug has been buried undetected for over 30 years.
By your logic, you are saying that you should never maintain software subscriptions but just expect software vendors to produce give away security patches and bug fixes for free.
If that were the case, nobody would be in business anymore.
Everyone pays for software maintenance and support for exactly that – maintenance and support and to cover the expense of maintaining and supporting the software. If you don’t want to pay for maintenance and support, that’s a risk you’ve decided to take.
Mark Wilson says:
Nice work Cormac
The U @ HCLSoftware says:
@cormac indeed – totally support your responses !!
David Leedy says:
“It’s mad that a bug can sit there undetected for 30 plus years.” — This was exactly what the whole Y2K problem was which so many companies had issues with. The only difference is they knew it was coming ahead of time and could fix it where HCL did not.
José Javier Gómez says:
Excuse the question. We now have a single Domino mail server (10.0.1) that provides mail service to our new employees and receives and sends mail over the Internet. A single mailbox that handles mail entry and security. Is it possible that this problem will not affect us, if we reset the server?
Steven Vaughan says:
Hi José,
As long as you have only one mailbox on the server (mail.box) mail routing should carry on OK after a reboot or restart of Domino.
However, server mail rules will stop working so check if you have any and if there will be any impact if they stop.
Ideally, you should be on a supported version of Domino (R11, R12 or R14) which requires a subscription with HCL.
Best regards,
Steven