Router variables

Router variables

The Domino mail router has one of the most important responsibilities of all server tasks—handling Notes email. It does this by delivering messages from MAIL.BOX into a local mail file or database, and transferring messages from MAIL.BOX across the network to another server. Needless to say, fast and reliable mail delivery is a key part of keeping your users happy. So if you're like most Domino administrators, you're always on the lookout for ways to ensure the router is running efficiently and doing what you want it to. And in fact, we've received several router-related questions. So this month, Professor INI discusses NOTES.INI variables that directly affect how the router runs.

For the sake of brevity, we'll focus on variables dedicated solely to router operation, easily identified by the fact their names begin with the word Router. Note, however, that there are numerous other variables that have at least some connection with the router (for example Mail_Log_To_MiscEvents, which determines whether the router displays mail event messages in the Miscellaneous Events view of the log file).

Q. Although we deleted Log_Mailrouting and MailClusterFailover from our server's NOTES.INI file and entered this information in a Server Configuration document, after server reboot the log file writes the following messages:

Router: notes.ini setting for Log_Mailrouting being used (note - this option may now be configured in a Server Configuration document)
Router: notes.ini setting for MailClusterFailover being used (note - this option may now be configured in a Server Configuration document)

Can you tell us how to fix this?
Be assured that although these messages are unnecessary and confusing, they shouldn't affect the operation of your Domino server. Professor INI agrees they're irritating and recommends you disable them. To suppress these messages, add the variable RouterINIUseMessageDisabled=1 to your server's NOTES.INI file.

Q. I would like to know how the parameter RouterPercentRelayEnabled works?
Domino 5.0.6 and earlier releases incorrectly processed the recipient address of an SMTP-relayed message if the address contains a percent (%) sign as an Internet domain suffix separator. To fix this, Domino 5.0.7 included the variable RouterPercentRelayEnabled=1. Note, however, that this variable will only work if you enable relays in your SMTP server's Configuration document. If either RouterPercentRelayEnabled=1 is missing from your NOTES.INI file or you have not enabled relays, an inbound SMTP message containing a % sign as an Internet domain suffix separator will result in a "User not listed in name and address book" error.

Q. What do RouterLowPriorityDelayNotify and RouterLPDelayNotifyBufferTime do?
These variables allow you to notify users when mail they send is routed with a low priority. For more information, see the July 2001 installment of Ask Professor INI.

Q. What other router-related variables are available?
Glad you asked. In addition to the above variables, you can use two others to help control how your router runs:

RouterAllowConcurrentXferToAll
This variable determines whether the router uses multiple concurrent transfer threads for inter-domain Notes routing. This variable was introduced in 5.0.3.

Setting RouterAllowConcurrentXferToAll=1 allows multiple transfer threads between two servers in the same Notes Named Network (NNN), two servers in different NNN, and two servers in different domains. Setting RouterAllowConcurrentXferToAll=0 (or simply removing it from your server's NOTES.INI file) results in the router distributing transfer threads as follows:

If the destination server in the same NNN, the router uses multiple threads for transferring mail to the same destination server.
If the destination server in the same domain but a different NNN, the router uses one thread per destination server.
If the destination server is in a different domain, the router uses one thread per destination domain.

With RouterAllowConcurrentXferToAll=1, the router uses multiple transfer threads in the last two situations.

RouterIgnoreForeignSMTPDomains
This variable tells the router to ignore the multiple relay support that uses Foreign SMTP Domain documents. Domino 5.0.3 added multiple relay support using Foreign SMTP Domain documents. Previously, these documents were ignored unless SMTP External was disabled. If you prefer to use the pre-5.0.3 functionality, you can add RouterIgnoreForeignSMTPDomains=1 to your server's NOTES.INI file. With this variable set to 0 (or omitted from the server's NOTES.INI file), the router will use Foreign SMTP Domain documents when determining a route to the destination domain.

Do you have a NOTES.INI questions? Send it in to Professor INI. We'll answer as many questions as we can in future "Ask Professor INI" columns. Keep in mind, however, that we may not be able to answer every question, nor can we quickly respond to requests that require immediate attention. If you need an immediate response to a question, we recommend you post it in the Notes/Domino Gold Release Forum where someone from the general Notes community might be able to help, or contact Lotus Support Services.