From the mailbag

This month Professor INI gets to indulge in a favorite pastime: answering Notes.ini questions you have recently submitted. These include questions about such timely topics as spam mail prevention and memory management. As always, you should avoid modifying your Notes.ini file unless you're an experienced Domino administrator, ideally under the direction of Lotus Support.

Q. I am having a problem with replication, but before I start messing up my Notes.ini, I would like to know what the following settings do:
Debug_Repl_Time=1
Debug_Replication=1
Log_Replication
Of the three variables you mention, the easiest to deal with is Log_Replication, a fully supported and documented variable Professor INI has discussed in several previous columns (most recently last month). Log_Replication defines the logging level of replication events. The other two variables are not supported or documented, as the prefix Debug implies. Debug_Repl_Time was a debugging variable used in R3.3 through R4.5. Your question doesn't mention which release of Domino you're running, but if it's R5 or later this variable is probably obsolete for you and should be removed. Professor INI has no knowledge of Debug_Replication; it may be yet another temporary variable created for a short-term purpose. You should also be able to remove this variable without impacting your system.

Q. We are running Domino on iSeries (AS/400). Our Notes.ini file includes the variable NSF_Buffer_Pool_Size_MB=300. The documentation says it's not necessary to put this entry in Notes.ini. Is this also true for iSeries?
Technically, NSF_Buffer_Pool_Size_MB (and the closely related NSF_Buffer_Pool_Size) is optional; if your Notes.ini doesn't include this variable, Domino calculates an NSF buffer pool value based on the total memory on your iSeries. However, starting with R5.0.4, Domino on iSeries includes the default setting NSF_Buffer_Pool_Size_MB=300 to ensure a buffer size adequate for such tasks as indexing. For more information, see the December 2000 installment of "Ask Professor INI."

Q. I support around 20 Notes 6 clients on MacOS X, and I can't find the Notes.ini file anywhere on their system. Does the Macintosh client have a different name for Notes.ini?
The Notes.ini file isn't used by Notes clients running on Macintosh computers. Instead, this information is stored in a Notes Preferences file located in the System folder - Preferences folder. To find this file, execute a Find from the desktop and search for "Notes Preferences." To edit the Notes Preferences file, use the Notes Preference Editor.

Q. How do I set up Notes.ini to block Internet mail from certain groups?
Professor INI knows of no single Notes.ini variable to do precisely what you're requesting, although a number of router-related variables can be used to help prevent spam mail. For example, RouterDisableMailToGroups=1 prevents messages addressed to a group name in your Domino Directory from being expanded; the message is then returned to the originator as a delivery failure. This helps minimize email address "harvesting," a technique favored by many spammers.

Notes/Domino 6 includes many spam-prevention features for both the client and server, which used together can prevent mail from unwanted groups from reaching your users. See the LDD Today article "Preventing spam mail in Notes/Domino 6."

Q. Is there any way I can stop Notes from changing time zones? I want to lock it in on the home time zone and never change it, regardless of the OS time.
You can use the variable TimeZone to do this. TimeZone specifies the local time zone in terms of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). For more information, see the Domino Administration documentation.

Q. Is there a Notes.ini setting for enabling/disabling network compression in Domino 6?
The short answer is there is no documented, supported variable for turning network compression on and off. However, it may be possible to use unsupported variables to do this on a per-port basis (for example, TCP/IP). You can probably browse the Web to find some of this information via non-IBM Lotus sources, but we do not recommend it unless you're extremely careful, and even then only at your own risk.

Q. Can you please tell me if the Notes.ini OS390_508_FTFlyMode parameter exists and what it is used for?
This (admittedly obscure) variable does indeed exist. In R5.0.9, we introduced a feature called "Full Text indexing on the fly" for databases that were not indexed. To ensure backward compatibility with R5.0.8 and previous releases, you can disable Full Text indexing on the fly by adding OS390_508_FTFlyMode=1 to your Notes.ini file.

Q. I can't seem to view the BCC field on messages I have sent. Is there a server or client Notes.ini setting controlling this?
Tough question. Professor INI is unaware of a setting that directly controls whether or not the BCC field is visible on sent mail. There is a variable called Disable_BCC_group_expansion that turns off expanding group names in BCC fields to improve server performance. Some SMTP-related variables in R5 also have some effect on the BCC field. But it seems doubtful any of these are causing the problem you describe.

Q. Is there a setting in Notes.ini that ensures the Domino server time is used by the Notes client and not the local operating system time?
Sort of. R5 included the undocumented variable UseNotesTimeZone. When set to 1 on Windows-based clients, this variable instructs Notes to use time zone and DST information set in the Notes.ini file, rather than the operating system. However, this variable is not supported in Notes/Domino 6.

Q. What is the HTTPDisableMethods=TRACE parameter used for and where do I find additional info on it?
This variable has completely stumped Professor INI. If there are any readers out there with information about this variable, please feel free to email this column, and we'll include it in a future installment.

Do you have a Notes.ini question? 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 6 Forum or Notes/Domino 4 and 5 Forum where someone from the general Notes community might be able to help, or contact Lotus Support Services.