You must install the 32 bit Informix Client SDK version 3.5 or later including the .NET drivers even if you are running on a 64 bit version of your operating system. The MALLET tool is strictly 32 bit. See the Informix Driver Download Page for details.

This version of MALLET only works with Unity Connection 8.0(1) or later.

You must enable the ODBC proxy service on the Unity Connection server and attach to the database using an account enabled for the remote database access role. See the next section for details on this.

This tool uses Microsoft’s full .NET 4.0 library (the limited “client” version of .NET 4.0 is not sufficient). The installation will check to see if you have that installed and if not will offer you the option to download and install it automatically.

Connecting to Unity Connection 7.x or Later

For installations of 7.0(1) and later you need to use the database proxy service for access to the database from off box for any DB tool including MALLET.

Task 1: Configure a User without a mailbox with the Remote Administrator and System Administrator roles

1. Go to the Cisco Unity Connection Administration web interface for your installation.

2. You can leverage a user with or without a mailbox for off box data access purposes, but it’s strongly suggested that you create a new user without a mailbox that is used solely for the purpose of remote administration tasks for security reasons. This is also required if you want to export messages from a Connection 7.0(2) or later server – a user with a mailbox may not be allowed to extract messages from other mailboxes, whereas a user without a mailbox should have no problem.

3. Be sure the web administration password for this user is not configured to require a change at first login on the “Password Policy” page for that user.

4. If necessary, change the web administration password on the “Change Password” page. Note that only the web application password comes into play for remote data access.

5. Finally, on the “Role” page for the user, add the “Remote Administrator” and the “System Administrator” roles to the “Assigned Roles” list and save. You can assign any or all other roles as well but for the purposes of remote access to the database and making updates to users those two are necessary.

Task 2: Set the Database Proxy Service Shutdown Time

Out of the box the database proxy service is not running and if you try to start the service it will shut down right away. First you need to set the “Database Proxy: Service Shutdown Timer” value found in the System Settings -> Advanced -> Connection Administration section of the Cisco Unity Connection Administration page. By default this is 0. You can set it to as high as 999 days if you like. After the number of days configured here the remote database proxy service will shut down. This is useful if you want to do some migration work, for instance, and don’t want to forget to have the service disabled for security reasons.

NOTE: If you restart the server, the remote database proxy service will remain shut off. After a system restart you have to go in and manually turn on the service again (see step 3)

Task 3: Activate the Remote Database Proxy Service

1. Out of the box the service that listens to remote database requests is not active, you must turn it on. To do this, go to the “Cisco Unity Connection Serviceability” web admin page.

2. On the Tools menu, select the “Service Management” page.

3. The “Connection Database Proxy” item under the “Optional Services” section will be marked as “Deactivated” and stopped. Press the “Activate” button and it will be activated and started automatically.

Once you’ve started the proxy service you can connect with any tool that needs off box database access using the user name, web administration password and port “20532”.

NOTE: The service will automatically shut down after the number of days configured in step 2 above or if you restart the server.

Task 4: Login to the Remote Server

When you first start MALLET, you will see a login dialog box that will be empty except for port 20532 filled in as the default for the port. You must provide the server name or IP address for the “Server” field and provide the login and password for the database connection account. Use the alias and web administration password of the database user created above for the login and password fields.

Text Box:

MALLET will remember your entries including the password (which is stored in a secure hash). Each time you run MALLET it will load the settings of the last connection you made. Every server you’ve successfully connected to in the past will be listed in the drop down list in the order in which you connected to it last – most recent to least recent.

NOTE: The login and password information is stored along with the local Windows login name. Only those servers that have been attached to successfully using the current Windows login will be listed. If you are logging into the same Windows server with different users you will only see servers connected to with that particular Windows login.

NOTE: Providing the wrong password or login will fail quickly and give you a chance to try a different pair. Providing an incorrect server or port, however, results in a 60 second timeout while UDD waits for the Informix driver to return. Unfortunately this cannot be shorted. Type carefully.

Troubleshooting Remote Login Issues

The error message issued by the application should have some details for you on the failure reason based on the error codes issued by the Informix driver to help narrow down your investigation. Here’s some general things to check that have been run across in the field for sites having trouble connecting to their remote Connection servers.

Double Check Connection Server Settings

Make sure the remote database proxy service is running. This service does shut itself off after a period of time and does not start itself automatically on a server reboot.

Make sure the user you are logged in as has the remote administrator role assigned to their account, that their password is not set to reset at the next login and that their account is not currently locked.

Make sure the server name or IP address you are using to connect with is reachable from your Windows client. DNS issues often come up in connection failures.

Disable CSA and all Virus Scanning Applications

It’s a good idea to disable CSA and all virus scanning applications if you are having problems connecting to be sure the ODBC port (20532) is not being blocked. Also check your firewall settings (assuming you are running one).

Make sure the Informix .NET Driver is Installed and the PATH Points to it.

For 32 bit OS installs, the IBM Informix driver is installed in C:\Program Files\IBM\Informix\Client-SDK. Make sure this path exists on your server and has not been removed or renamed.

The system PATH variable will also include a reference to the “\IBM\Informix\Client-SDK\bin” location where the driver is installed. Make sure this path is referenced in the PATH. Also, if the PATH is very long sometimes the Informix driver will not find it, try moving it to the beginning of the PATH statement.

If you had an older version of the IBM Informix Client SDK installed it's a good idea to uninstall all other versions and make sure you have a single instance of the SDK 3.5 or later. Mixing versions of Informix drivers is not a good idea as only one can be active at a time.

Using MALLET

Coming soon…

Obtaining Updates

To check for updates to this tool, visit http://www.CiscoUnityTools.com

Revision History

Version 1.0.18 - 3/7/2013

· Updated name generation for all objects to pull information from the 2000 US census for contacts, vpim contacts, users and lists.

· Removed performance chart option for now (3^rd party chart control licensing issues).

Version 1.0.16 - 2/20/2013

· Changed the profile editing page for directory objects to allow for manually entered values into drop down edit boxes instead of pre populated drop down lists.

Version 1.0.15 – 1/20/2013

· Updated for Windows 8 installations

Version 1.0.13 - 12/10/2012

· Added check for version against CiscoUnityTools.com web site.

· Added additional checks to be sure remote SMTP addresses are present before attempting to send messages to remote nodes.

· Updated message send logic to include a force SMTP connection recycle every 10 messages.

Version 1.0.11 - 11/30/2012

· Added VPIM Contact load engine.

· Fixed "pallet flash" issue with grid during updates

· Added options for being able to limit which load engine items were displayed in the grid.

Version 1.0.10 – 11/27/2012

· Added partitions load engine.

· Added search spaces load engine.

· Fixed issue launching “.json” documents if there’s no application registered on the client for that file extension.

· Fixed “refresh” option on job history table so that it “sticks” on the currently selected job if there is one.

· Changed “bulk delete” sequence to allow items to be added to the work queue while the deletions are in progress instead of throwing them away.

· Added tooltip text to profile names on main form.

· Updated UI layout to use a Flow Layout control for the load details tab and included the ability to configure the display order in the options menu.

Version 1.0.9 – 11/20/2012

· Added basic performance statistics gathering into database.

· Added simple charting to show performance data.

· Added Settings save/restore

Version 1.0.8 - 11/18/2012

· Optimized database queries a bit to reduce the number of count queries used during new object creation.

· Optimized UI update logic to hit the grid refresh and count reference updates.

· Added job history view form with XML and JSON output options.

Version 1.0.6 – 11/14/2012

· Added ability to dump current traffic engine shapshots to the clipboard or file output while running.

· Added additional logging and diagnostic output, particularly around the shutdown/disposal process for all the task engines.

· Fixed some dependency issues in disposal of node objects during shutdown.

· Fixed some invalid UI thread references when database stored procedures took too long and timed out when Connection servers got too slow to respond.

Version 1.0.5 – 11/11/2012

· Updated from Access database to SQLite libraries – eventual x32 and x64 deployments in mind.

· Added statistics tables to the database and started gathering basic statistic of each engine for each server in the load.

· Capped the queues for all engine types at a maximum of 200 pending operations – no further operations will be placed on the queue if there are 200 outstanding.

Version 1.0.2 – 9/8/2012

· Voice name functionality plumbed in for users, contacts and list.

· Added additional logging and logging cycle/view features on main form.

· Added debug option on main form.

Version 1.0.1 – 9/6/2012

· First beta drop – only directory users, contacts and lists are currently working – includes all profile management and threading work.