Sharing a password between two applications

Issue

Customer SSO enabled Lotus Notes using a script for NLNOTES.EXE. As expected, the user’s Lotus Notes password was then encrypted and stored against the NLNOTES.EXE platform on their user object.

Lotus Notes v6 comes with a program called Notes Minder. Notes Minder is a feature that checks for mail and monitors Calendar alarms when Notes is not running. It displays an icon in your system tray when you have a message or alarm. Notes Minder uses NMINDER.EXE and when users run it, it prompts for the Lotus Notes password.

The SSO administrator SSO enabled NMINDER.EXE. The password is then encrypted and stored against the NMINDER.EXE platform on their user object for future logons, meaning the same Lotus Notes password is stored once against Lotus Notes and once against Notes Minder (stored twice in total).

When the user changes their password for Lotus Notes, the password is automatically updated against NLNOTES.EXE but not against NMINDER.EXE. Therefore, when the user tries to run Notes Minder, their password is wrong (the old password is stored).

Is there a way to store the password once so it can be shared and updated (when changed/expired) for both NLNOTES.EXE and NMINDER.EXE?

Cause

Logon to Notes Minder (NMINDER.EXE) does not use the same application definition as the standard Lotus Notes logon (NLNOTES.EXE).

By default, passwords are stored directly against applications. The password for Lotus Notes is stored against Lotus Notes and the password for the finance system is stored against the finance system etc.

To enable sharing of passwords or to allow the same applications to have multiple credentials sets you must use the SetPlat command in an application or the Link button via the GUI.

Solution

Share the Lotus Notes password between NMINDER.EXE and NLNOTES.EXE using the SetPlat command.

Using SetPlat, you only have to store the password once, typically against the NLNOTES.EXE platform, and NMINDER.EXE will simply look it up rather than prompting the user to enter and save it again. This means all password changes are performed centrally and Notes Minder reads the password stored against NLNOTES.EXE every time it attempts to logon.

Using this method, the password is NOT stored against NMINDER.EXE at all. It is stored centrally against NLNOTES.EXE. When the password for Lotus Notes changes again, Notes Minder uses the same new password automatically.

The following command needs to be added to the Notes Minder script to instruct SecureLogin to look up the credentials values against NLNOTES.EXE:

SetPlat ""NLNOTES.EXE""