These release notes contain important information available at the time of the iPlanet Calendar Server (iCS) 5.0 patch 4 release. New features and enhancements, installation notes, known problems, and other late-breaking issues are addressed here. Read this document before you begin using iPlanet Calendar Server.
For an online version of these release notes, see the iPlanet documentation web site:
Check the web site prior to installing and setting up your software and then periodically thereafter to view the most up-to-date release notes and manuals.
The patch 4 release notes contain the following sections:
iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 patch 4 includes the following changes:
iPlanet Calendar Server (iCS) 5.0 includes the new csdb utility check and rebuild commands to check and, if necessary, to rebuild a calendar database (caldb).
To use these new commands, we recommend that you:
The check command scans a calendar database and checks calendar properties (calprops) events and todos for corruption. If the check command finds an inconsistency that cannot be resolved, it reports the situation in its output.
We recommend that you run the check command regularly to check your calendar database for inconsistencies. For example, consider running check after each backup of your database. However, if you already know that your calendar database is corrupted, you don't need to run the check command. Go ahead and rebuild your corrupted database.
# csdb check >/tmp/check.out 2>&1
If you don't specify a database directory, check uses the database specified in the ics.conf file.
The check command can generate a lot of information, so we recommend that you redirect all output, including stdout and stderr, to a file.
The rebuild commands scans a calendar database and checks calendar properties (calprops) events and todos for corruption. If the rebuild command finds an inconsistency, it generates a rebuilt calendar database (.db files) in the server-root/cal/bin/rebuild_db/ directory.
# csdb rebuild > /tmp/rebuild.out 2>&1
If you don't specify a database directory, rebuild uses the database specified in the ics.conf file.
The rebuild command can generate a lot of information, so we recommend that you redirect all output, including stdout and stderr, to a file.
For the new features in Calendar Express, see New Features for Calendar Express 5.0 on the iPlanet documentation web site. This document describes all of the new features in Calendar Express 5.0, including patches 1 through 4.
iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 patch 4 also includes the following features, which were released prior to patch 4:
iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 supports hundreds of thousands of users through a scalable networked server-to-server, client server architecture. iCS 5.0 also supports horizontal scalability to allow de coupling of iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 to many front-end servers with back-end servers.
The server supports a Free-Busy search feature on multiple calendars. Calendar Express 5.0 also offers side-by-side group comparison views for a set of calendars to help with group scheduling.
iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 is designed to perform Group Scheduling. In particular, Calendar Express 5.0 allows a user to create an event to which other attendees are invited. The Attendees can accept or decline invitations. Attendees are typically people on the same calendar server, but this is not an absolute requirement. When iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 detects that an Attendee is not on the calendar server, it can send the scheduling message (a request, reply, and so forth) via email as an IMIP message. This allows Calendar Express 5.0 users to schedule with Outlook users. Users can:
Conference rooms, overhead projectors, and other resources can be managed and scheduled using Calendar Express 5.0. Each resource is associated with its own calendar. In iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0, a calendar can also be configured to enable or disable the double book option. By default, a calendar associated with a resource has this option disabled, and a person's calendar has the double booking enabled by default.
The Access Control model implemented in iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 allows the owner of a calendar to specify another user as an owner that can act of behalf of them. For example, an executive can designate an administrative assistant as an owner, enabling the assistant to have complete access to all of the executive's calendars or any set of chosen multiple calendars. The administrative assistant can create group meetings on behalf of the executive and can accept or decline meetings on behalf of the executive. The executive can then decide not to give access to a personal calendar.
iPlanet Synchronization (iPlanet Sync) is a synchronization tool running (initially) on a Windows client that synchronizes data with the iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0. iPlanet Sync is still a beta product and is not yet supported until after it is officially released. It will be available for existing and future customers of the iPlanet Calendar Server. iPlanet Sync is not part of the iPlanet Calendar Server packaging and once it is released, it will be available to download separately.
Virtual domain support provides portals and ISPs a way to host multiple calendar sites on the same calendar installation. Full virtual domain support is scheduled for a future release; however, a limited subset of virtual domain functionality is available with iCS 5.0 patch 2. This early implementation functionality allows customers to implement virtual domain solutions in a limited fashion. If you would like to further investigate the use of this limited virtual domain capability, contact your iPlanet Technical Support representative through your normal support channel.
For additional information, see:
http://knowledgebase.iplanet.com/ikb/kb/articles/4950.html
This section contains information you should know before installing iCS 5.0 patch 4, including:
For complete installation information and instructions, refer to the iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 Installation Guide.
The installation of iCS 5.0 patch 4 will overwrite your existing files. If you have customized any files, such as ics.conf,.xsl, .xml, .js, or help (.htm) files, save copies of these files before you begin the installation. Then, after you have installed patch 4, merge your changes from the saved files into the new patch 4 files.
See Installation overwrites customer data (544043) for more information.
Also, before you install patch 4, remove any *.so_pre-Hotfix_* files, especially any files that might be in the server-root/cal/bin/plugins directory. Otherwise, some of the pre-Hotfix files may be automatically loaded from this directory and can cause inconsistent calendar behavior.
The minimum hardware requirements for iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 are:
iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 patch 4 supports the following operating systems:
Note AIX and HP/UX are not supported by iCS 5.0 patch 4.
Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 8 (SPARC) require patches from Table 1 below, which you can obtain from your service provider or download from the Web.
In Table 1, the number in parenthesis in the Solaris Version column is the output from the uname -r command for that version of Solaris.
The two numbers following the dash in each Patch ID is the revision of that patch. The table lists the minimum patch revisions required by this release of the JDK and JRE; later revisions are acceptable.
We recommend that the Libthread patch be applied last. In addition to the patches listed here, you might also want to install the latest patch cluster for your version of Solaris, which includes additional recommended and security patches. Solaris patch clusters are available for download on the Web. Follow the appropriate links starting at http://sunsolve.sun.com.
Note
Solaris Version
Patch ID
Note
Description
SunOS 5.6: ssJDK1.2.1_03 fails with fatal error in ISO8859-01 Locales
Note For Solaris 8, install the latest Recommended & Security Clusters patch downloaded from http://sunsolve.sun.com (dated Oct. 19, 2000 or later in the patch readme file).
Solstice AdminSuite 3.0.1: Auditing, 'compat' in nsswitch.conf
For a list of recommended patches, see:
iCS 5.0 patch 4 supports Windows NT with Service Pack 6.
Note On Windows NT machines with slower processors (200mhz or less), the start-cal command might time-out. If this happens, start iPlanet Calendar Server using the Services dialog box accessed from the Control Panel.
Calendar Express requires a JavaScript-enabled browser. For optimal performance, we recommend the following browser versions for iCS 5.0 patch 4:
Browser
Solaris
Windows
Macintosh
The ics2migrate migration tool is available to sites that have installed iCS 2.x. This tool provides data migration for calendar databases as well as for LDAP user preferences. Before running ics2migrate, you should use csuser reset userid to clean up previous migration data on LDAP userprefs (if applicable). If you did a previous iCS 2.x database migration, perform the migration again because of changes to the ACLs. For information about ics2migrate, see the iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 Installation Guide.
Migration tools for the Netscape Calendar Server and the Sun Calendar Server to iCS 5.x are not yet available in this release. If you are running Netscape Directory Server 4.12 or newer and have not put in any schemas, the installation program updates these schemas for you.
Table 3 lists the problems fixed in the iCS 5.0 patch 4 release.
iCS 5.0 patch 4 has the following known problems and limitations:
For documentation problems, see Corrections to the Documentation.
Server JavaScript returns fully qualified URLs rather than relative URLs (548613)
After login, the Server JavaScript returns fully qualified embedded URLs, including the port number, rather than relative URLs. The fully qualified URLs cause problems if you are trying to use the Calendar Server with a load balancer or proxy server.
csbackup utility fails if target directory exists and -f option is not specified (548077)
The csbackup utility fails if the target backup directory already exists and you do not specify the -f option. For example, the following command fails if backupdir exists (even if it is empty):
# ./csbackup database backupdir
If the target backup directory already exists, include the -f option when you run the csbackup utility. For example:
# ./csbackup -f database backupdir
csdb -v list command causes segment fault if caldb.berkeleydb.ensmsg.createcal="yes" (547227)
If caldb.berkeleydb.ensmsg.createcal is set to "yes", commands such as csdb -v list, csschedule -v list, and cscal list user can cause a segmentation fault.
The default for caldb.berkeleydb.ensmsg.createcal is "no". To avoid problems in iCS 5.0 patch 4, do not set this parameter to "yes".
Events created on a Macintosh using Communicator 4.x contain corrupted data (546501)
If you create a new event or task on a Macintosh using Netscape Communicator 4.x and add a name, location, and description, extra character(s) are added at the end of the description.
If you need to create new events or tasks with a name, location, and description on Macintosh systems, use Netscape Navigator 6.x or Internet Explorer 5.x.
Can't turn "auto-create calendar" feature on/off for first-time user login (546368)
By default, the Calendar Server creates a default calendar when a new user first logs into the Calendar Server, and currently, there is no option to disable this feature.
None. However, a new preference to disable this feature will be implemented in a future release.
Calendar Overview has inconsistent method for displaying tasks (546279)
The Task/Event box, which appears just below the date banner for both the Overview and Day views, does not display tasks consistently.
Calendar Express displays tasks in the Task/Event box on the Overview and Day views as follows:
The Calendar Server does not display future tasks because a calendar might have hundreds (or even thousands) of future tasks, and displaying all of them would quickly overflow the Task/Event box. To view future tasks for a calendar, use the week or month view.
Availability check for "mailto:" attendee is not working as documented (546119)
If you schedule an event and use the "mailto:" option to invite a user who has a calendar, the Calendar Server shows the availability of the user as "unknown."
The "mailto:" option is intended to invite (or inform) users who:
When you invite attendees to an event, use the "mailto:" option only for the above users. Invite other calendar users by specifying their user ID.
On Windows NT, Import option does not display calendars for Event Destination (546046)
On Windows NT, if you click Options and then Import, the drop-down list of calendars for "Add events to:" is empty. This problem occurs for calendars with long display names.
On Windows NT, use calendars with shorter display names. For calendars with long display names, there is no workaround.
Calendar is not searchable by other users although Availability and Schedule are checked (545718)
A calendar created before the patch 4 release is not searchable by other calendar users unless the Read privacy setting is checked. Checking only the Availability or Schedule privacy setting does not make the calendar searchable.
The patch 4 release fixes this problem for subsequent new calendars. However, if you have an existing calendar that you created before patch 4 was installed, you might need to change its privacy settings to make it searchable.
To change the privacy settings for a calendar in order to make it searchable by other calendar users:
For the new default setting for calstore.calendar.default.acl, see New or Revised Parameters for the ics.conf File.
Calendar Server allows double booking of calendars (545230)
The Calendar Server allows double booking of a user's calendars even if user.allow.doublebook is set to "no" in the ics.conf file.
To prevent double booking for a user's calendar, run the cscal utility with the -k no option for each individual calendar.
Not everyone has the calendar entry after a meeting has been scheduled (544371)
To invite an attendee who does not have a default calendar to a meeting, you must specify the attendee's email address. The Calendar Server then sends an email message using "mailto:" to the attendee with the event details, but it does not create a default calendar for the attendee.
The Calendar Server creates a default calendar for a new calendar user in either of these situations:
If necessary, use the cssuser utility to create default calendars for new calendar users. For information about cssuser, see the iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 Administrator's Guide.
Remote Calendar Server graphical install fails if using non-C locale (544177)
Remote Calendar Server installation failed in two different scenarios.
If you have a problem running the install program in a non-C locale environment, set the LANG environment variable to C, and then run the installation program again.
Installation overwrites customer data (544043)
The Calendar Server installation program overwrites existing files. If you have customized any files, such as ics.conf, .xsl, .xml, .js, or help (.htm) files, your information will be lost.
Save copies of any customized files before you begin the Calendar Server installation. Then, after you finished the installation, merge your changes from the saved files into the new files.
HTML/JavaScript in events is rendered by iCS (542905)
HTML or JavaScript is rendered when placed in the description of an event or task.
To prevent HTML or JavaScript from being rendered in the description of an event or task, edit the SUNWics5/cal/bin/data/en/common_view.xsl file as follows (you might need to do this for all languages):
|
<xsl:value-of select="@e_Description"/>
|
with the following:
<xsl:call-template name="Esc_Text">
<xsl:with-param name="text" select="@e_Description"/>
</xsl:call-template>
|
<xsl:value-of select="string(@e_Description)"/>
|
with the following:
xsl:call-template name="Esc_Text">
<xsl:with-param name="text" select="string(@e_Description)"/>
</xsl:call-template>
|
<xsl:value-of select="substring(string(@e_Description), 0, 60)"/>
|
with the following:
xsl:call-template name="Esc_Text">
<xsl:with-param name="text" select="substring(string(@e_Description), 0,
60)"/>
</xsl:call-template>
Calendar Server does not save view changes and always defaults to the overview (539849)
The Calendar Server should save a user's view and default to it upon new logins, or it should allow a user to set the default view under the Options tab.
None. This problem will be fixed in a future release.
Email notifications cause problems with Netscape Communicator (536838)
In Calendar Express, email notifications can cause problems with Communicator. iCS 5.x notifications are optimized by default for the Outlook client. Notifications are sent out in multi-part MIME formats - text/plain, text/html, and text/calendar. These formats are defined in the server-root/cal/bin/config/en directory.
With these default formats, the event notifications are not correctly rendered in Communicator. Being rendered in this case means that Communicator is trying to handle the text/calendar format that is optimized for Outlook. In Communicator it exposes the "More Details", "Accept", and "Decline" buttons. It also will display a "Error: 3.0 Unknown: (::)".
For additional information about setting the calendar display name to the LDAP CN, see:
http://knowledgebase.iplanet.com/ikb/kb/articles/4964.html
Search in new event using a wildcard (*) returns directory server error (536751)
A search that uses a wildcard character (*) or a short substring in a new event returns the following error:
There was a problem with the directory server. (2)
The following problems can cause this error:
If the directory server is not down, avoid using the wildcard character or short substrings (such as "j", "t", "sh", or "sh*") in the search. Or, to configure the LDAP server to ignore the lookup limit, change the lookthroughlimit to -1 in the slapd.ldbm.conf file.
Export from Internet Explorer 5.5 does not work correctly (536284)
If you are using Internet Explorer 5.5, the Calendar Express Export function saves the calendar as an HTML file and not in .ics or .xml format.
Privacy settings cannot be removed from Everybody (533960)
For the user's default calendar, it is not possible to remove all of the privacy settings for "Everybody" unless another user has been added to the privacy list. This will be fixed in the next release.
To remove the privacy settings from Everybody for a calendar:
Calendar Express doesn't allow "last day of the month" for repeating events (523190)
Calendar Express does not allow you to specify the "last date of the month" (regardless of the date) for a monthly repeating event. Also, if you schedule a monthly repeating event for the 29th, 30th, or 31st, Calendar Express does not warn you that the event cannot be scheduled for the months that do not have these dates. (September, November, April, and June have 30 days each; February has 28, or 29 in leap years.)
To specify the "last date of the month" for a monthly event, schedule the event for the actual last day of each month and do not use the monthly repeating option. If you schedule a monthly repeating event for the 29th, 30th, or 31st, remember that some months do not have these dates, and you might need to schedule the event for other dates for these months.
Installation program does not display default time zone or allow it to be set (520356)
The default time zone for iCS 5.0 is "Americas/Los Angeles". The installation program does not display this default or provide a way to change it. Also, if the system default time zone (which is OS specific) is different from "Americas/Los Angeles", the installation program does not attempt to find an iCS time zone that matches it.
None during installation. However, when importing files, you can set the following time zone parameter in the ics.conf file:
! Timezone ID used when importing files.
calstore.default.timezoneID = "America/New_York"
Also, for more information, see:
http://knowledgebase.iplanet.com/ikb/kb/articles/4996.html
Calendar email attachment is unreadable with Netscape Messenger on Solaris (412288)
When a user is invited to a meeting, the email attachment generated by iCS5 is unreadable with Netscape Messenger running under Solaris. When Messenger attempts to read the attachment, it returns the following error:
ERROR: Cannot find NLS Data Directory
For a workaround, see the following article:
http://knowledgebase.iplanet.com/ikb/kb/articles/5017.html
This section describes correction and changes to the following iCS 5.0 documentation. If the change is the result of a bug, the bug ID is included with the description of the change.
The Installation Guide doesn't mention that a directory administrator, which will be the Calendar Administrator (CALMASTER), must be created on the LDAP server before iCS is installed. If this user is not created, the installation cannot finish successfully. This problem occurs only during an iCS install against a "fresh" LDAP when a user has not yet been created. The following note will be added to the Installation Guide:
Note Before you install iPlanet Calendar Server, you must first create an LDAP user (such as CALMASTER or whatever name you chose) to be the iPlanet Calendar Server Administrator. If this LDAP user doesn't exist during iCS installation, the name you type in Calendar Server Administrator returns NULL in the LDAP user search, and you cannot continue the installation.
On page 13, the following note under "Updating the LDAP Schema" has been removed from the Installation Guide because the schema files are contained in a packaged server file, and there is no reason to download them separately:
The Task/Event box, which appears just below the date banner for both the Overview and Day views, does not display tasks consistently.
Calendar Express displays tasks in the Task/Event box on the Overview and Day views as follows:
The csuser utility now includes the optional -l langcode option, where langcode is the language code. The default for langcode is the value of local.sitelanguage in ics.conf.
Correction to Time-Zone Format Code
In Table 2-17, "Special Character Sequences for Dates," the format code for "Time-zone name or abbreviation" should %Z (uppercase) instead of %z (lowercase).
New or Revised Parameters for the ics.conf File
For other changes, see also WCAP Preferences and Changes and DWP preferences have been removed (525918).
Starting with iCS 5.0 patch 3, an administrator has two new capabilities that require new server configuration preferences:
For example, if an administrator logs in using login.wcap, any WCAP command can be used to read (fetch), alter (store), or delete other user's calendars. For an administrator to have this privilege, the following server configuration preference must be set to "yes":
service.admin.calmaster.overrides.accesscontrol
For example, if an administrator logs in using login.wcap, any user's preferences can be retrieved or modified. For an administrator to have this privilege, the following server configuration preference must be set to "yes":
service.admin.calmaster.wcap.allowmodifyuserprefs
To use these new preferences, the administrator must use the login.wcap command to login as the administrator before issuing any other commands.
The Administrator's Guide states that "... all trusted applications need to be in the same domain and on the same machine." However, "on the same machine" is incorrect and has been removed from the guide.
DWP preferences have been removed (525918)
The following DWP related preferences have been removed from the ics.conf file:
UID is not displayed in mail notifications (512121)
In Table 2-15 on page 66, the meaning for the format code %U should read as "Unique Event Identifier" and not UID (Unique Event Identifier).
Space in UID causes error when creating events or tasks (523062)
If a user ID (UID) contains whitespace, the user can login, but the Calendar Server returns the Bad Request error if the user tries to create an event or task. The following note will be added to the next revision of the iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 Administrator's Guide:
The configuration of the admin port has been removed from the iCS 5.0 installer. To configure and enable/disable the admin port, edit the following preferences in the ics.conf file:
The check_id command is only for administrators who have logged in as administrators using login.wcap. This command causes WCAP to check if the specified session ID is still valid. WCAP returns the property X-NSCP-WCAP-CHECK-ID. If the session is valid, the value of this property is 1. If the session is not valid (it has either timed out or is unrecognized), the value of this property is 0.
This command takes two parameters: id and fmt-out.
The first parameter, id, is required and is the unique identifier string (UID), which is the session ID to be validated. There is no default value.
The second parameter, fmt-out, is optional. It is a string that specifies alternate output formats. The default is "text/js".
In each command, the parameter is the same and accepts one of three keyword arguments: event, todo, or all.
This argument directs WCAP to return, respectively, only events, only todos, or both events and todos. This parameter is not required. The default is all, returning both events and todos. If an unrecognized value for the component_type parameter is passed in, the default value is used.
The value of tzid must be a time zone ID string, such as "America/Los_Angeles". Note that these are not localized. If other ISO 8601 DateTime string parameters, such as rid, dtstart and dtend, do not have a "Z" on the end, this parameter determines the time zone to use.
The value is no longer a quoted string, but is now a time zone ID string to match the acceptable values for tzid in the seven commands listed above.
The default value of the tzid parameter in all commands is the server's default time zone. This is a change for storeevents and storetodos.
This argument is a string that tells WCAP which user's preferences to display or set. This parameter can only be used by the administrator, and only if the server configuration parameter service.admin.calmaster.wcap.allowmodifyuserprefs is set to "yes", and the administrator is logged in as administrator using the login.wcap command.
To avoid collisions with the special use of ":" in the server, the incoming command must have the calendar ID formatted with a "^" where the ":" character normally would be. That is, if the normal calid is jdoe:personal, to use this new parameter, the calid must come in as:
If the value of convertCalid is set to 1, WCAP converts incoming "^" character back to a ":". The default value for convertCalid is 0.
The convertCalid parameter is recognized only if the preference to be set is either icsSet or icsSubscribed; otherwise, it is ignored.
For mailto: in Calendar Express, information under "How do I Create an Event?" should state:
When adding an invitee to a calendar event, you can enter their calendar name or email address. Entering the calendar name will send them an invitation on their calendar, and entering their email address will just send them an email.
If you need to schedule an event with someone who uses another calendar system, you can send them an email to inform them about the event. They will, however have to enter the event information into their own calendar.
Enter the user's email address in the following format in the New Event Invite list: mailto:username@domain. If you invite or inform an attendee and you see an attendee with the format mailto:username@domain in your invite or inform list, it may mean that the user does not have a calendar created on this system.
Calendar Express Group event help doesn't tell you how to add the group to the event (544277)
The section "How do I Add a Group Event" should be changed to "How do I Schedule an Event for Several Users?"
Calendar Express Options->Settings->Event Reminders has cryptic email text box (545477)
Under Options->Settings->Event Reminders, the text box displays cryptic "email$", and online help needs clarification for this box. This problem occurs when the user doesn't have an email address in the UG LDAP host preferences.
Under the "What are Settings For?" section, the following information is correct for Event Reminders:
Event reminders - When the "Always email a reminder." is checked, it allows you to enter an email address that will automatically receive a reminder a certain (specified) amount of time before the start of the event. You can have this auto email reminder sent out to more than one of your email addresses, you just need to separate each address with a comma (,) or a semicolon (;). For example, you may want to send a an email reminder to your office and personal email address 15 minutes before any events are to begin.
If you have problems with iPlanet Calendar Server, contact iPlanet customer support using one of the following mechanisms:
So that we can best assist you in resolving problems, please have the following information available when you contact support:
Useful iPlanet information can be found at the following locations:
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Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, iPlanet, and all Sun, Java, and iPlanet based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Netscape and the Netscape N logo are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other Netscape logos, product names, and service names are also trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation, which may be registered in other countries.
Last Updated February 01, 2002