June 25, 2008
Novell® Teaming + Conferencing is an enterprise collaboration tool that integrates with GroupWise®. The Conferencing component provides real-time, instant meetings to remove the distances between team members located throughout the world. Key conferencing features include:
Meeting scheduling and management tools
Messaging client available on Linux* and Windows*; works in conjunction with the open source Pidgin project
Instant messaging and chat during meetings
Presence indicators in Novell Teaming to show who is available to meet
Application and desktop sharing to facilitate demonstrations for all team members
Whiteboarding to allow team members to brainstorm and to draw out their ideas
Voice support that includes Voice over IP so that team members can talk to each other, using a soft phone on their workstations
The following enhancements are part of this support pack:
You can now call participants using the PC phone.
Meeting client windows are set to be transparent on Windows* in order to hide them during a desktop share.
New SIP session timer support handles keepalives sent from the SIP PBX.
There is a new time entry control for meeting setup. The new control also validates that the start time is before the end time. If not, the value you changed is modified to create a thirty-minute meeting.
NMS driver software and configuration are included in the Conferencing server package. The Conferencing server installer configures the voice bridge based on information you enter while installing the NMS board.
Support has been added for the Apache* and PHP packages that are supplied with your Linux distribution of choice. Apache 2.2 and PHP are no longer packaged with Novell Conferencing, so you need to install them yourself before starting the Conferencing installer.
You can now share multiple applications at the same time.
Pidgin has been upgraded to 2.3.1.
System requirements and installation instructions are available in the Conferencing 1.0 Server Installation Guide on the Novell Teaming + Conferencing 1.0 Documentation Web site.
Because of changes in the Web portal service of Novell Conferencing, the file system location of meeting recordings and whiteboard sessions has changed. These files used to be located in the /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/repository/ directory. Previous to the release of SP1, the Web portal service utilized a custom version of the Apache Web server that was installed as part of Novell Conferencing. With the introduction of SP1, the Web portal service utilizes the Apache Web server packages provided by SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server, so the recording and whiteboard repository directory is now located in the /var/iic/htdocs/repository/ directory.
If you want to maintain access to whiteboard sessions and recordings created before the upgrade to SP1, you need to move or copy the contents of the /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/repository/SharedDocuments and /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/repository/mtgarchive directories to the /var/iic/htdocs/repository/SharedDocuments and /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/repository/mtgarchive directories, respectively. Make sure that you have sufficient disk space on the partitions/drives where the /var directory is mounted to accommodate this data.
Apache and PHP are no longer included in Conferencing. You must install Apache* and PHP from your OS media before installing Conferencing.
The upgrade of the Linux client might not work automatically. If the automatic upgrade fails, download the client from http://portal-hostname/imidio/downloads/conferencing.rpm to your desktop, then double-click it to complete the upgrade.
The upgrade of the Windows Client on Vista might fail. If SSL is enabled on the server, the existing Vista client is unable to download the update. Download the client from https://portal-hostname/imidio/downloads/conferencing.exe, and select or to complete the upgrade.
To make Pidgin available for download, untar pidgin-version.tar.gz to /var/iic/htdocs on the Web servers after completing the server install. For more information see the Conferencing 1.0 Server Installation Guide on the Novell Teaming + Conferencing 1.0 Documentation Web site.
In preparation for inclusion into the SLED distribution, the Pidgin client has been separated into multiple RPMs. Each RPM must be installed separately in the order listed. For more information, see the Conferencing 1.0 Server Installation Guide on the Novell Teaming + Conferencing 1.0 Documentation Web site.
Use lowercase hostnames when installing the server. Clients might not be able to connect if uppercase letters are used when entering hostnames during installation.
If you are using Voice over IP (VoIP), the microphone associated with your computer probably does not provide sufficient audio quality for other meeting attendees to understand you. A headsets plugged into the microphone jack of your computer is highly recommended.
If the sound quality of your meeting connection is low, your connection might be losing voice packets.
In the Conferencing client:
Click .
On the tab, select .
This setting allows Conferencing to use ilbc, which is more resilient to lost packets.
The Conferencing server installer is notified if the default e-mail templates have changed and there are local customizations to the same files.
If the portal hostname refers to an external router instead of a local server, the Conferencing installer uses the IP address instead.
The Conferencing installer error that occurred when setting the LDAP synchronization time of day has been fixed.
The LDAP install now works correctly in multi-server mode.
The Conferencing server installation process has been changed to automatically embed the correct server hostnames into the client RPMs as they are deployed to the Web server.
The client now automatically shuts down if a mandatory upgrade fails.
The Conferencing server installer now has an option for selecting the language.
The Invitation Web page as been simplified and the instructions have been re-arranged. New user instructions are now first.
Meeting titles are now limited to a single line, because multiple lines are not allowed in an e-mail subject.
The option now correctly performs a contact search during a running meeting.
Meetings that span multiple NMS boards in a server now function correctly.
If you request an operation but the Conferencing server is waiting for contacts to finish downloading, a dialog box now appears, notifying you about the cause of the delay. The dialog box includes a progress bar and allows you to cancel out of the wait, which also exits the application.
Hidden windows no longer appear in the .
Current code now handles the ERROR_INTERNET_SECURITY_CHANNEL_ERROR gracefully when you share a Whiteboard on Vista.
The Whiteboard no longer crashes when you click anywhere inside the tab after a Whiteboard share.
PC phones now work for unregistered callers.
The PC phone button now works correctly on Vista.
Superadmins do not have a Personal Address Book, so a node is not displayed. Superadmins now sign on to a different community, which prevents superadmins from adding, deleting, or editing buddies or personal contacts.
The client connector service (jadc2s) now logs to a separate log file in /var/log/iic (consistent with other Conferencing services).
The client trap now works correctly when the share server is not available.
Online help is now translated to all languages supported by the client. Missing strings have been added in the client, and authentication/sign-on errors have been translated.
A new authorization scheme has been added for users who are trying to access a meeting recording in the /repository/mtgarchive/... tree. The host of a meeting is the only user authorized to access recordings of that meeting.
A new authorization scheme has been added for users who are accessing a Whiteboard share. Only meeting participants are allowed to access the Whiteboard share.
The share server clock has been modified to check the meeting status and the participant ID when a user joins a meeting.
The Admin password is no longer echoed to the screen during the Conferencing server installation. You must now enter the password twice to confirm.
The reserved words “anonymous,” “.service,” and “.iic” are not allowed in screen names.
Passwords saved in the user and system .opt files are now cleared whenever the check box is cleared.
The Conferencing server installer now generates a unique key for the Conferencing services to use when connecting to the Jabber server.
Only administrator users are allowed to log on to the Conferencing Administration console.
The Password column has been removed from the Conferencing Administration console community list display.
The following sources provide information about Conferencing:
Online product documentation: Novell Teaming + Conferencing 1.0 Documentation Web site
Product documentation included in Conferencing
To access the Conferencing client Help system, start the Conferencing client, then click .
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