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Lotus Domino is a wonderful web server to use for your intranet. The power you can bring with the Domino development platform is fairly evident, and hopefully we’ve documented that here for you over the years.

One aspect of the web server that is pretty lacking however is the default login forms for web applications. By default you will see the following pop-up login when accessing a secure application on your intranet:

It’s okay, but hardly awe-inspiring. Then, if you set up session-based authentication on your server, you get this default:

Wow, how awesomely cool is that? Would your users look at that and know they were logging into your site? Probably not. It’s not branded, and completely devoid of any style. By adding a configuration database and adding a simple form, you can make the experience so much better.

Creating the Domino Configuration database

In order to get custom login pages, the server or website you wish to create the custom login form for needs to have session authentication turned on. (Check with your administrator to make sure that is the case.) Once you've verified that your site is using session authentication, you also need to create a Domino Web Configuration database. This database allows you to customize login forms as well as error messages (which we won’t get into in this article.)

To create the Domino Web Configuration database, do the following:

Click File, Application (Database), New

Choose the server you are putting the configuration database on

Enter a title (i.e. Domino Web Configuration)

Enter domcfg.nsf as the filename

Choose the server you are putting the configuration database on

Go to the bottom of the dialog and Click the Show Advanced Templates checkbox

Choose the Domino Web Server Configuration template

Click OK

Once the database is created, give Reader access to the Anonymous user in the database's access control list (ACL.)

Now that the database is in place, restart the HTTP task on your Domino server. It will pick up on the fact that there is now a domcfg.nsf. By default, when you log into the server you will now get this slightly better login prompt.

Better, but the whole reason for this exercise is to make the page customized to your environment.

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