Overview

This article describes a worked example detailing the cluster process for a two-node horizontal cluster in an IBM® Sametime® 8.5.2 Gateway environment, in which both the Deployment Manager and the Sametime Gateway Primary node are installed on a single server, with the Secondary Gateway node on a separate server.

The article also discusses the installation of the XMPP server and the installation and configuration of the Sametime Gateway Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) proxy. In this case the SIP proxy is to be implemented on the same server as the Secondary Gateway node.

This process is documented in the Sametime 8.5.2 InfoCenter topic, “Creating a cluster and proxy servers."

Prerequisites
Before we start, implement the installation steps described in the Sametime wiki article, “Installing an IBM Sametime Gateway 8.5.2 environment," and make sure the Gateway Deployment Manager is running and the nodes are stopped.

Creating the cluster

To do this, follow these steps:

1. On the Deployment Manager, open a command window, navigate to the stgw_server_root\config directory [for Microsoft® Windows® look in C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\WebSphere\STgateway\config], and run the following command:
2. The following window displays; select your language click OK:




3. The Welcome window displays; click Next:




4. Enter the Secondary node, click the Add Member button, and then click Next:




5. Enter the user ID and password for the database schema owner; click Next:




6. Click the Configure button:




7. The Summary window displays; click Finish:




8. Restart the Deployment Manager (DMgr):

9. Start the node agent on the node with the following command:



10. Click on the cluster name to view the members; the following window displays (with enlarged right-hand pane below it):







11. Click the Details button; the Cluster member window is displayed:



Note that the steps to add vertical cluster members are detailed in the InfoCenter topic, “Creating a vertical Gateway cluster by adding servers to existing nodes.”

Connecting a Sametime Gateway cluster to the DB2 database

To do this, connect to the Sametime System Console (SSC):

1. On the left-hand navigation pane, expand the Sametime System Console task, expand Sametime Prerequisites, and select “Connect to DB2 Databases”:



Enlarged “Connect to DB2 Databases” section:

Installing a SIP and XMPP Proxy server on Windows

The instructions for installing a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) Proxy server are in the InfoCenter topic, “Installing a SIP and XMPP proxy server on Windows

1. Follow Steps 1---3 in Section 2 above; then accept the license agreement terms and click Next:




2. In this case, the install is running on the server with the Secondary Gateway node already installed; click Next:




3. Now, configure the profile for this Sametime Gateway server; enter the details and click Next:




4. Configure the administrative user for WebSphere Application Server; enter the details and click Next:




5. Enter the path to the installation location. The default values are shown in the following window; enter the details and click Next:




6. The installation wizard displays a summary of the details entered; review and click Install:




7. Upon completion of the installation the Success window displays; click Finish:

Installing WebSphere iFixes for the SIP Proxy server

If updates are required, refer to the the InfoCenter topic, “Installing WebSphere iFixes for the the SIP proxy server (Windows) in a Sametime Gateway cluster.”

Federating the Proxy server node into the cell

This procedure is detailed in the InfoCenter topic, “Federating the proxy server node into the cell.”

To do this:1. Log in to the Proxy server; in this example the Proxy and the second Gateway server are installed on the same server.

2. Verify that the time on both the Proxy and DMgr servers is less than 5 minutes apart.

3. In Windows, navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\RTCGW_Profile1\bin> and federate the Proxy to the Dmgr, using the command:4. Enter the DMgr log-in credentials and click OK:



On completion, the following message displays:



Verify that the Proxy servers are installed correctly
To do this:

1. Log in to the Integrated Solutions Console. If you already logged in, you must log out and then log in again before you can see changes.

2. Select Servers --- Server Types --- WebSphere proxy servers. You should see “SIPProxyServer”:




3. Select Servers --- Server Types --- WebSphere application servers. You should see “XMPPProxyServer”:



Enlarged list:


Configuring a SIP Proxy server
This process is detailed in the Infocenter topic, “Configuring a SIP proxy server." We discuss the configuration process in Section 4 below.

Assigning the SIP Proxy to work with the Gateway cluster

1. In the Integrated Solutions Console, select Servers --- Server Types --- WebSphere proxy servers.

2. On the "WebSphere proxy servers" page, click the SIPProxyServer link corresponding to the Proxy server you want to update:




3. Click SIP Proxy server settings --- SIP Proxy settings:




4. From the Default cluster drop-down list, select “SametimeGatewayCluster”:




5. Click OK, then click Save.

Configuring SIP Proxy server to listen on ports 5060 and 5061

First, determine which ports the SIP Proxy server is currently listening on:

1. On the cluster's DMgr, log in to the Integrated Solutions Console as the WebSphere administrator.

2. Select Servers --- WebSphere proxy servers --- SIPProxyServer --- Ports:




3. Check the listening ports for the following names:
The following steps are a worked example of the steps in the InfoCenter topic:

1. Determine whether any servers share the IP address and host name with the SIP Proxy server. In this case the secondary Gateway server is on the same box.
2. If another server shares the IP address and host name, change the default host port settings for that server, to avoid a conflict with the SIP Proxy server.
3. Still on the DMgr, select Server --- Server Types --- WebSphere application servers, and check whether any servers use the same IP address and host name as the SIP Proxy server.
4. If a server does share the IP address and host name, check its port settings for the SIP_DEFAULTHOST and SIP_DEFAULTHOST_SECURE names:

5. If SIP_DEFAULTHOST is not set to 5060, and SIP_DEFAULTHOST_SECURE is not set to 5061, then perform steps 6---8; otherwise, skip to Section 4.2.
6. If ports 5060 and 5061 are already in use, change those settings now by setting:
7. Save your changes to the master configuration by clicking Save when prompted.
8. Now, reset the SIP ports on the SIP Proxy server to use ports 5060 and 5061:

• On the DMgr, select Servers --- WebSphere proxy servers --- SIPProxyServer --- Ports, and change the port settings for the following names:

• Save your changes to the master configuration and synchronize the nodes in the cluster:

• WebSphere Application Server displays a message prompting you to save changes to the master configuration. Select the Synchronize nodes option before clicking the Save button.

Configuring the correct network address for the SIP Proxy

Now we need to create custom properties for the SIP Proxy server and define custom properties that will instruct the SIP Proxy server to do the following:

• Return the "503 Service Unavailable" message when the server is down, rather than the default error "404 Page not found" message.

• Accept messages that do not contain a forwarding header.

1. In the Integrated Solutions Console, select Servers --- Server Types --- WebSphere proxy servers --- your_new_SIP_proxy.
2. Select SIP Proxy server settings –- SIP Proxy settings --- Custom properties.
3. Click the New button, and enter three new entry names and their values; click OK and click Save:

Upon completion you will see:




Tuning the SIP Proxy server used by a Sametime Gateway cluster
1. In the Integrated Solutions Console, select Servers --- Server Types –- WebSphere proxy servers --- SIPProxyServer.
2. Under Server Infrastructure, select Java and Process management --- Process Definition:




3. Under Additional Properties, select Java Virtual Machine:




4. On the next window, in the Initial Heap Size field, enter 600; in the Maximum Heap Size field, enter 600; and in the Generic JVM arguments field, enter the following value as one continuous line:



5. Click OK and click Save, to save changes to the master configuration.

Configuring the Gateway cluster and SIP proxy for a NAT environment
If you need to do this, follow the steps detailed in the topic of the same name.

Conclusion

At this point you will have the Sametime Gateway Deployment manager, and Primary and Secondary servers installed, and the SIP Proxy installed, clustered, and configured. If XMPP server configuration is required, follow the steps in the InfoCenter topic, “Configuring the XMPP proxy server," as this is beyond the scope of this document.

The Sametime Gateway environment is now ready to be started and registered with the System Console.

Resources

developerWorks IBM Sametime product page:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/products/instantmessaging/

Lotus Sametime documentation page:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/documentation/sametime/index.html

IBM Sametime Forum:
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/stforum.nsf?OpenDatabase

About the author

Desmond McCann is a Chartered Engineer working on the Sametime Verification Test team. He has been with IBM since 2010, focusing on integration and interoperability across Lotus Sametime products.