Copy Lotus Notes databases from the Domino Server console command line

I use this blog to remind myself of items now and then so I can just search here and find them. This was pulled from this article and I am reproducing it here for my own edification as it will be really useful going forward. You can just ignore this if Lotus Notes / Domino isn’t your thing…
Copy Lotus Notes databases from the Domino Server console command line
Bruce Elgort
07.19.2007

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Recently I needed to make “copies” of some Lotus Notes databases and didn’t want to do it from my Lotus Notes

client. This would have taken hours considering the Lotus Notes database was 5 GB.I knew that there had to be a way to do this and there is. Thanks to the assistance of my friend Thomas Gumz, I was able to issue a command line from the Domino Server console — and presto, the database was instantly copied. It’s not documented or supported, but it has been around for a long time, at least since R4 according to Thomas.

So let’s look at what you need to do to enable this feature. The Domino Server console commands are turned off by default, so you need to first enable them. Set this server notes.ini variable, like so:

  • set config CLUSTER_ADMIN_ON=1 (even if the server is not in a cluster, it doesn’t matter).

    No need to restart the Domino server, it becomes active immediately. This enables this new command: CL COPY sourcedb targetdb.

    Below, I have listed some examples for the CL COPY command:

  • CL copy serverA!!db1.nsf serverB!!db2.nsf
    This creates a regular non-replica copy of db1.nsf on serverA as db2.nsf on ServerB
  • CL copy serverA!!db1.nsf serverB!!db2.nsf REPLICA
    This creates a replica copy of db1.nsf on serverA as db2.nsf on ServerB
  • CL copy serverA!!db1.nsf serverB!!db2.nsf TEMPLATE
    This creates a template copy (only design, no data) of db1.nsf on serverA as db2.nsf on ServerB
  • CL copy db1.nsf db2.nsf
    This creates a regular non-replica copy of db1.nsf as db2.nsf on the same local server
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