Notes Client / Core/Frameworks (Incl. sidebar, rich text editor): Automatic location switching - based on IP

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:11:32 +0000

Author: Marcel Damseaux
Tags: location document location passthru
Idea:

We use an Office location and an Internet location (which uses passthru servers in the DMZ with encrypted Notes ports), with different connection documents, so our users don't need to start/use a special VPN just to get to their mail.

That means I have to switch to the Office location in the morning, and to the Internet location when I take my computer home every day.

What I propose is that the locations can be linked to an IP address or subnet, so my client would switch/start automatically in the location document I have specified for that IP.

That way our users in Notes would have same experience than the Oulook users we are migrating, and not to worry about those location documents anymore.

This would be very similar to Sametime "Geographic locations", it doesn't seem to be "rocket science"; in fact I have implemented it on a very rudimentary way with Lotusscript in minutes (launched at client startup via StartupDB=) and it works (but I need a native thing!).

- Stores location-ranges associations in notes.ini variable, like

$IPLocation=193.180.188.*,Internet;,Internet;192.168.1.*,Internet;10.2.42.*,Office (Network)

Sub LocationSwitcher

Dim session As New NotesSession

Dim workspace As New NotesUIWorkspace

iplocationarray=Split(session.GetEnvironmentString("IPLocation", False),";")

' Search the location to switch to

locationfound=""

myip=currentRange()

Forall iploc In iplocationarray

If Strleft(iploc,",") = myip Then

locationfound = Strright(iploc,",")

End If

End Forall

If locationfound<>"" Then

Print "Setting location according to range "+myip+": "+locationfound

On Error Resume Next

Call workspace.SetCurrentLocation(locationfound)

On Error Goto 0

' pending - validate the location - if it doesn't exist present list Call workspace.SetCurrentLocation("Internet") is valid!

Else

Call workspace.SetCurrentLocation("")

' Store the location chosen for the future

location=Strleft(session.GetEnvironmentString("Location", True),",")

If iplocationarray(0)="" Then

Call session.SetEnvironmentVar("IPLocation", myIP+","+location,False)

Else

Call session.SetEnvironmentVar("IPLocation", myIP+","+location+";"+session.GetEnvironmentString("IPLocation", False),False) ' notice the new one is added at the begining so if exceeded string older are discarded

End If

End Sub

Function CurrentRange() As String

' This way also gets VPN address

allranges=""

Set IPConfigSet = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}").ExecQuery ("select IPAddress from Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration where IPEnabled=TRUE")

Print "Getting IPs", Now

Forall IPConfig In IPConfigSet

If Not Isnull(IPConfig.IPAddress) Then

For i=Lbound(IPConfig.IPAddress) To Ubound(IPConfig.IPAddress)

If IPConfig.IPAddress(i) <>"0.0.0.0" Then

CurrentRange=Strleftback(IPConfig.IPAddress(i),".")+".*" ' return only one

Exit Function

End If

End Forall

CurrentRange=Fulltrim(allranges)

End Function

re: Automatic location switching - based on IP

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:24:07 +0000

Author: David Hablewitz
Comment: Clever. I know you can have multiple connection docs and Notes will try each until it finds a path and you can specify multiple IPs in one connection even. I would have to test it out again to be sure, but I don't think you need to switch locations at all to achieve your goal so long as you don't need a different location for the other settings, like mail file location. (For laptop users I set them to always work locally, even when they are in the office.)

re: Automatic location switching - based on IP

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 05:49:56 +0000

Author: Marcel Damseaux
Comment: Believe me you do need locations in our situation, we have 40.000 users and Office and Internet locations since 1996 and lots of Notes admins and consultants are and have been in our environment and nobody got a better idea.
There is also a performance issue, you do not want Notes to try connections to servers it will not be able to reach, that will slow down the startup of the client (for the #%#$% ECL refresh - which could be done on the background later, that should be another good idea actually). If the client already knows by its IPs whether to use passthru or direct IP/DNS it would be connecting right away at startup thus starting the client faster.

IdeaJam(tm) : Automatic location switching - based on IP

Notes Client / Core/Frameworks (Incl. sidebar, rich text editor): Automatic location switching - based on IP

re: Automatic location switching - based on IP

re: Automatic location switching - based on IP