Updating Sametime Persistent Chat ‘Time To Live’ (TTL) on Windows Sametime servers

The time-to-live (TTL) setting defines how long the chat history is stored in the database. The default value is 90 days.

The instructions on how to change it in the official documentation unfortunately refer only to Docker and Kubernetes deployments and do not cover the Windows-based chat-only server.

On a Windows Server, you don’t have to edit the file custom.env, as you would in Docker or Kubernetes; instead, you need to edit the file chatlogging.ini.
Add at the end of the file this value: CL_MONGO_HISTORY_TTL=30 where 30 is the number of days you want to keep the chat history.

Then follow the instructions in the documentation to delete and recreate the Mongodb indexes. Open a mongo shell and type the following commands
use chatlogging
db.EVENTS.getIndexes() [here the default value should be 7776000]
db.EVENTS.dropIndex(“TimeStamp_1”)
db.USERS.dropIndex(“date_1”)

Restart the Sametime server and check again the value of the EVENTS index for TimeStamp_1, should be 2592000 in my case of 30 days.

Farewell……..almost.

“Angels never know it’s time
To close the book and gracefully decline”
were singing the Genesis in 1976 (Ripples, one of their best songs ever, IMHO).

I am not at all an angel, so I know when it’s time to take a step back.

Effective January 1^st 2026 I will retire, though I will do it “gracefully” and not abruptly.

I will still remain a Partner in ELD Engineering, but all the customers I am working with on Domino will be taken care by my friend and colleague Luca Zucchelli. I will still work with the customers on Sametime and Connections. That will not be a full-time activity, but will keep me busy enough not to get bored.
Also, I will continue to serve as a Director for OpenNTF, there are some things we’re working on and I will continue to help there.

I will not take a trip back on memory lane, so I will not tell all the good, the bad and the ugly of 37 years of career started with Notes 3.0, my readers don’t deserve such a punishment.

You will still see me around, I will be continue to be present in the Discord servers of OpenNTF and HCL Ambassadors (pending a confirmation for the last one), and if you happen to be at the next Engage, I will offer you a beer or two.