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Reader Feedback: More on Vendor Names and Changing System Names
Published: October 17, 2007
by Joe Hertvik
This week, let's took a look at a few emails that I received concerning some of my recent Admin Alert columns. These emails contain more information on how to retrieve system information for vendors and the relationship between changing your i5/OS system name and iSeries Access for Windows PC5250 connections.
Regarding my article, "What Vendors Want to Know (and How to Get It)" that described different ways to retrieve system information, Elvis Budimlic of Centerfield Technology had this to add:
We've faced this issue as well. Our solution was to create a command for customer download that provides all the information we require as a vendor. It's called Display License Information (DSPLICINF) and you can find it on the Centerfield Web site.
I downloaded and tested Centerfield's DSPLICINF utility and it was easy to retrieve and easy to run. Centerfield also does a nice job providing clear concise instructions for using the utility. The utility comes pretty close to retrieving all of the system information that I listed in my article. In fact, the only piece of vendor information from my article that it doesn't return is the number of processors allocated to the partition, which is nice to have but isn't a necessity for many vendors. At the price (free), it might be worthwhile to plop it on your system for use when you are working with vendors. It only took me about 10 minutes to download and install the package to one of my partitions.
After reading my piece on "Changing Network Attributes", reader J. Brown had this question about the relationship between iSeries Access PC5250 sessions and the network attributes' system name on an i5/OS box:
If you change the system name in the manner described, what happens to all the iSeries Access sessions that were previously configured to connect to the "old" system name? Does each PC need to have a new connection established under the "new" system name?
The answer is no. When you change the system name network attribute, it should not have any bearing on whether or not your iSeries Access for Windows sessions are still able to connect to your box. This is because iSeries Access programs connect to your server through TCP/IP communications, which are usually configured in one of the following two ways.
- By hard-coding the TCP/IP address of your System i or iSeries box into the iSeries Navigator (OpsNav) connection representing that target box. For many iSeries Access programs, the default connection parameters are taken from the PC's OpsNav connection for the target box.
- By using a DNS name entry or Windows Host Table name for the i5/OS box that your session is trying to establish a connection with. When connecting, the DNS or Host Table name is converted to the IP address of the box the application is attempting to connect to.
The bottom line is that the i5/OS system name listed in the network attributes is not used by any iSeries Access for Windows program to connect to a System i server. Among other things, system names can be used in the following ways:
- To identify the system you are signed on to on 5250 green screens and in your job logs.
- In some non-TCP/IP communication protocols and for routing distributions in the System Distribution Directory.
- To create the default server name for the AS/400 NetServer TCP/IP server.
So don't worry. The network attributes system name has little to do with your iSeries Access for Windows connections.
That's it for the mailbag this week. Keep those email questions coming in because it helps all of us learn more about the ins and outs of administering System i boxes.
For additional technical help, be sure to check out IT Jungle's Web Forums, where System i, iSeries, and AS/400 users and experts get together every day to solve each other's problems. There are a number of different forums covering system information, programming, middleware, databases, and job postings. Check it out when you need help or just to learn something.
--Joe
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