Tivoli Directory Integrator Certificate Chain Exception

 Saw this error today in an HTTP Client Connector in TDI 7.1.1:

 java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Certificate chaining error

I had the remote host's entire certificate chain imported into serverapi/testadmin.jks . I also made certain that my solution.properties file was pointing to the correct JKS file, restarted the TDI CE multiple times, and it simply kept failing. I thought I was going crazy, so I:

• stopped TDI CE
• moved testadmin.jks
• zeroed out testadmin.jks
• started TDI CE
• Went to the connector and clicked "Get Certificate" and it complained, whereas before it said "Certificate is already trusted", so I knew I was dealing with the correct JKS file.
• FINALLY, out of desperation, I deleted the server certificate, but left the other two certs in the chain (the signer and the signer of THAT certificate), and THEN IT WORKED.

So I'm not certain what the moral of the story is, but that's how I solved this problem, which is slightly different than I've seen anywhere else and I wanted to record it to hopefully help anyone who runs into this in the future.

Launch a page in JazzSM DASH without login page

The following is from an IBM Communities post on this topic by Detlef Kleinfelder . The link is also included, but those see to go dead on IBM's site, which is why I'm including the text:

https://community.ibm.com/community/user/aiops/discussion/is-there-a-way-to-run-public-event-viewer-of-omnibus-webgui-for-big-wall-dashboards#bmd85f7aed-8757-47a5-99c0-ceae09aec075

you can launch a page directly with URL provinding the page id and an user-based token.

The user-based token has the encoded username and password that is used to authenticate and launch a page.

 

The URL convention is https://<FQDN>:16311/ibm/action/launch/<PageID>/<xlaunchCred>

where:

FQDN = Fully Qualified Domain Name or IP address
PageID = The Page ID of the DASH page
xlaunchCred = The user-based token generated by xlaunchapi.jar

The following STEPS will walk you through to obtain the required parameters:

 

1. Get the Page ID of the DASH page. For example, to get the Page ID of DASH About Page, open the About page and click on the "Page" icon at the top right corner and click "About". The Page ID is under "General"

2. Generate the  user-based token using xlaunchapi.jar, ensure all text in the command are all in one line as shown:
    
   ./java -cp /<JazzSM_HOME>/profile/installedApps/JazzSMNode01Cell/isc.ear/xlaunchapi.jar com.ibm.isc.api.xlaunch.LaunchPropertiesHelper\$Encode com.ibm.isc.xlaunch.username <username> com.ibm.isc.xlaunch.password <password>

• Replace <username> and <password> with the user you want to Single Sign On.

 

• The command will return a string like:

• L2NvbS5pYm0uaXNjLnhsYXVuY2gudXNlcm5hbWUvc21hZG1pbi9jb20uaWJtLmlzYy54bGF1bmNoLnBhc3N3b3JkL29iamVjdDAw

3. Following the URL convention, https://<FQDN>:16311/ibm/action/launch/<PageID>/<xlaunchCred>, launch the DASH About Page. The page will launch without manually entering login and password.

 

• Example:

• https://dash151.poc.ibm.com:16311/ibm/action/launch/com.ibm.isclite.ISCAdminPortlet_banner.isc.about/L2NvbS5pYm0uaXNjLnhsYXVuY2gudXNlcm5hbWUvc21hZG1pbi9jb20uaWJtLmlzYy54bGF1bmNoLnBhc3N3b3JkL29iamVjdDAw

Configuring DASH/JazzSM and WebGUI HA using an ObjectServer database

 There is a great support article on this exact topic here:

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/omnibus-webgui-configuring-high-availabilityload-balancing-using-omnibus-81-objectserver-ha-database

There are just a few caveats that need I need to point out:

1. Use the webha.sql file from the above link to create the ObjectServer database. There are two similar files on your DASH/JazzSM server after the install, but both are incorrect.

2. The instructions in the link for configuring WebSphere are all manual, through the WebSphere Admin Console. To make things more easily repeatable, I created a file with all of the Jython WebSphere administrative commands required. Here are the contents of that file:

Modifying the Netcool Remedy 8 gateway for use with Java JDK 8

𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝

The Netcool Gateway for Remedy 8 version 1.3 was originally written for Java 6, which used the Rhino JavaScript engine. The Nashorn JavaScript engine in Java 8 (which is automatically installed with an OMNIbus fixpack) is slightly different. Nashorn is so different that the some modifications are required to get the probe to work correctly.

The error you'll see in the gateway log file if you try to run the gateway without these changes is:

Error: [Main Gateway] java.lang.RuntimeException: javax.script.ScriptException: ReferenceError: "importPackage" is not defined in <eval> at line number 1

The issue is basically that Nashorn gives you a new way to create Java objects within JavaScript.

𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
You will need to modify three files to get the Remedy 8 gateway working correctly. Those files are listed here:

$𝗢𝗠𝗡𝗜𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘/𝗷𝗮𝘃𝗮𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁/𝗺𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀/𝘀𝗼𝗴.𝗷𝘀
$𝗢𝗠𝗡𝗜𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘/𝗷𝗮𝘃𝗮𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁/𝗺𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀/𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁.𝗷𝘀

In the above two files, you simply need to add this one line at the beginning of each file:

𝚕𝚘𝚊𝚍("𝚗𝚊𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚗:𝚖𝚘𝚣𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚊_𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚝.𝚓𝚜");

$𝗢𝗠𝗡𝗜𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘/𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀/𝗯𝗺𝗰_𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗱𝘆/𝗯𝗺𝗰_𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗱𝘆.𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.𝗷𝘀 
This file requires a bit more customization. Specifically, you replce this line in the update() function definition:

    𝚟𝚊𝚕𝚞𝚎𝚜 = 𝚜𝚘𝚐.𝚗𝚎𝚠𝚛𝚘𝚠();

With these 3 lines:

    //𝚟𝚊𝚕𝚞𝚎𝚜 = 𝚜𝚘𝚐.𝚗𝚎𝚠𝚛𝚘𝚠(); // 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚝 𝚘𝚞𝚝.
𝚟𝚊𝚛 𝚂𝙾𝙶𝚁𝚘𝚠 = 𝙹𝚊𝚟𝚊.𝚝𝚢𝚙𝚎("𝚌𝚘𝚖.𝚒𝚋𝚖.𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚘𝚕𝚒.𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚌𝚘𝚘𝚕.𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜.𝚜𝚘𝚐.𝚂𝙾𝙶𝚁𝚘𝚠");
𝚟𝚊𝚛 𝚟𝚊𝚕𝚞𝚎𝚜 = 𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚂𝙾𝙶𝚁𝚘𝚠();

Once you make all of the above changes, you need to restart the gateway for the changes to take effect, and it has a better chance of working. I say better chance because you still have to provide all of the correct values for the various properties. But if you're just upgrading your working gateway to OMNIbus 8.1 FixPack 30, then the above changes are what you need.

Updating the bundled Java SDK 8 in WebSphere 8.5.5.x

There are a couple different ways to install Java with WebSphere. The most common way is to simply use the bundled Java SDK. Even with this, sometimes you need to update the Java SDK outside of a Fix Pack. To do that, you need to download an update specifically for the bundled Java SDK. Those can be found here:

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6209712#Java8B

You can download the appropriate version, unzip it, add it as a repository to Installation Manager, and then click "Update" to update the WAS bundled JVM.

An example scenario is this:

I have a customer with WAS 8.5.5.11 installed in a secure and regulated environment. They were told they needed to install WAS 8.5.5 FP 23 (FP24 is available, but it has not yet been approved for installation in this environment) and Java 8.0.8.5. WAS 8.5.5.23 comes bundled with Java 8.0.7.20. So we needed to apply the 8.5.5.23 Update via Installation Manager, and then apply the Bundled Java SDK 8.0.8.5 Update via Installation Manager, and all was good.

Upgrading from IBM Installation Manager 1.8.x to 1.9.x

This is a little tricky because both the documentation and the error message you receive when you try to follow the documentation both lead you in the wrong direction if you currently have IIM installed in "Group mode".

Specifically, the docs tell you to add the new IIM repository.config as a repository to your current IIM 1.8.x installation and to click Update. However, when you do that, it fails and tells you to run the "userinst" command from the new version. This is the correct command to run IF you initially installed IIM in "User mode". But if you originally installed in Group mode, you need to run the "groupinst" command instead.

When you do run "groupinst" (or "userinst" or "install" if you installed it originally in "Admin mode") from the new IIM, you need to make sure to specify the same Data location as you previously used. It will simply use the default value by default, so you need to explicitly state the correct location. ADDITIONALLY, if you specified a custom data location on your original install, you need to copy the InstallationManager.dat file from under that location (run a 'find' to find it) to this location :

/home/your_user/var/ibm/InstallationManager_Group/etc/.ibm/registry/InstallationManager.dat

This is the default location that IIM looks in for the file. If you don't copy this file over, it will tell you that there's an inconsistency in your install. Here's the error you'll see:

The Installation Manager's registry information is inconsistent with its installation information.

The registry information at "/home/netcool/var/ibm/InstallationManager_Group/etc/.ibm/registry/Installationmanager.dat" indicates that the Installation manager is not installed. however. the information at the "/opt/IBM/InstallationManager/IM/var/ibm/InstallationManager_group" data location indicates that Installation manager 1.8.9 (internal version: 1.8.9000.20180313_1417) is installed at location "/opt/IBM/InstallationManager/IM/InstallationManager_Group/eclipse".

Copy the file over, and you'll no longer get the error.

Also, as a handy piece of information, that file contains the Data Location, specified on the "appDataLocation=" line.

Securing the Netcool EWS Probe

Background

The Netcool Probe for Microsoft Exchange Web Services (EWS Probe) documentation leads you to create the probe with a very large security issue. Specifically, following the IBM documentation, the probe is allowed to access ANY mailbox just by specifying the name of the mailbox (email address) WITH NO PASSWORD. That is not ideal.

Solution

My client and I contacted IBM support and got the following solution really quickly (within just a couple of hours):

The steps are taken from this link https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/auth-limit-mailbox-access.

Due to security concerns highlighted by customer, A Doc APAR to add the following steps into probe guide has been raised.

APAR number : IJ41418

Limiting probe access to specific Exchange Online mailboxes.

By default OAuth authentication enables the probe to access all mailboxes in an organization on Exchange Online. Administrators can identify the set of mailboxes to permit access by putting them in a mail-enabled security group. Administrators can then limit probe access to only that set of mailboxes by creating an application access policy for access to that group.

a. Create a new mail-enabled security group using steps in this link or use an existing one and identify the email address for the group.

b. Add the user of mailbox to be accessed by probe into the group.

c. Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell. For details, see Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

d. Create an access policy on the registered Azure Active Directory application.

New-ApplicationAccessPolicy -AppId <<Application/ClientID>> -PolicyScopeGroupId <<SecGroupEmail>> -AccessRight RestrictAccess -Description "IBM Netcool EWS Probe Mailbox"