Category: HCL Connections

Upgrading containerd from 1.7 to 2.x? Read this first!

Posted on July 9, 2026 by martdj

Upgrading from containerd 1.7 to 2.x as part of an HCL Connections Component Pack upgrade may introduce an unexpected issue: the default open file limit is no longer set to infinity. In larger or heavily used environments, this can lead to EMFILE (Too many open files) errors and application instability, as we experienced with MongoDB after upgrading to CR14. This article explains the change, how to identify whether your environment is affected, and the steps required to restore the previous behavior and verify the fix.

Migrating Connections Ingress to Traefik – beware of these outdated Helm values

Posted on June 29, 2026July 7, 2026 by martdj

The HCL Connections component pack now (since CR14) uses Traefik as Ingress controller. The values-file that HCL provided in their migration files, contains outdated values. This article explains what to change.

Tuning OpenSearch for HCL Connections

Posted on June 11, 2026June 11, 2026 by martdj

HCL is using OpenSearch as part of its component pack for HCL Connections 8 for metrics and the typeahead functionality. The standard settings for the OpenSearch are rather conservative, and might not work for your environment. In particular if your environment is heavily used, you might run into problems. HCL did provide a possibility in their Helm chart to tune the settings. This article explains how to use it.

How to prevent Connections from spoofing mails

Posted on July 30, 2025July 30, 2025 by martdj

Did you know HCL Connections can send system emails that appear to come from individual users — even external ones? This can cause spoofing issues and damage your mail server’s reputation. In my latest post, I explain how to fix this with a simple configuration change introduced in Connections 6 CR4.

Removing security-auditlog indexes from your OpenSearch cluster

Posted on July 17, 2025July 30, 2025 by martdj

If you’re running HCL Connections with OpenSearch, you might be unknowingly storing hundreds of security-auditlog indexes, one for each day since your migration. These tiny but numerous indexes quickly consume shards, impacting cluster health.
In this post, I’ll show you how to disable unnecessary audit logs (if you don’t need them) and safely remove old ones, freeing up resources and restoring cluster stability

TDILabjam – a nice bunch of TDI enthusiasts

Posted on July 16, 2025July 17, 2025 by martdj

The Tivoli Directory Integrator (TDI) editor may not be something you use every day as an HCL Connections admin, but when you need it, usually after months or even years, it’s mission critical. If you’ve ever opened a TDI AssemblyLine only to realize you’ve forgotten everything, you’re not alone. Luckily, there’s help!

Querying your OpenSearch index

Posted on July 1, 2025July 7, 2025 by martdj

OpenSearch powers key HCL Connections features like Orient Me and Metrics. As an admin, knowing how to query indexes directly helps you verify data integrity, troubleshoot search issues, and manage storage. This article walks through essential REST API commands to inspect index health, mappings, and content, using a reusable sendRequest script.

WebSphere 8.5.5 FP27 & HCL Connections… beware!

Posted on May 2, 2025May 6, 2025 by martdj

IBM WebSphere 8.5.5 Ficpack 27 introduced a security feature: TLS certificate hostname verification. This might provide problems in your HCL Connections WebSphere environment and will cause problems if you’re using the HCL Connections component pack if you don’t take the proper measures.

Changing the file size limit for a community

Posted on November 29, 2024December 5, 2024 by martdj

By default, a HCL Connections community can contain 500 MB of files in the Files widget. Depending on what kind of content is posted in the community, that might not be enough. It’s possible to change the file limit, both for communities and for personal files. This article shows how to do it.

Installing Huddo Boards on WebSphere-only Connections

Posted on June 24, 2024March 14, 2025 by martdj

One of the nicer extensions which you get when you install the HCL Connections component pack is Activities Plus, or, if you pay an extra license fee to ISW/Huddo, Huddo Boards. If you don’t want to install the component pack, you can still use Huddo Boards. This article explains how.