• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • IBM i TRs Bring New Open Source Data Transfer Tools

    February 22, 2017 Alex Woodie

    IBM i shops that adopt the latest Technology Refreshes from IBM will find a trio of new open source tools for moving data and objects across various data transfer protocols used on the Internet. The addition of Wget, cURL, and rsync to the IBM i Open Source solutions package will give IBM i shops more choices for moving data.

    As IBM added open source development tools like Python, PHP, and Node.js to the platform, it has triggered requests for additional tools that open source developers are familiar with, says Alison Butterill, the offering manager for IBM i in Rochester, Minnesota.

    “These three tools Rsync, Wget, and cURL, are very popular with open source programmers,” Butterill told IT Jungle‘s Dan Burger last week. “Developers requested these be put into the system.”

    So what does IBM i get with Wget? According to the GNU Project, Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from the Web. A user can use Wget to set up a download from a remote system, and then walk away from the computer, knowing that Wget will handle the download by itself, and then terminate the session when it’s done.

    Wget supports HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP protocols, as well as retrieval through HTTP proxies, and was “designed for robustness over slow or unstable network connections,” GNU says. “If a download fails due to a network problem, it will keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved.” And if the remote server supports “regetting,” Wget will instruct it to continue the download from where it left off.

    The developers of Wget, Giuseppe Scrivano and Hrvoje Nikšić, originally designed the software the 1990s to fill a gap in Web downloading space, since no single program could work over HTTP and FTP. It became immediately popular among Unix users who were struggling with slow dial-up lines. Since then, it has been ported to run on Linux, Windows, Mac OS, OpenVMS, AmigaOS, MorphOS, HP-UX, and, now the IBM i OS.

    Here’s a fun fact about Wget, per the tool’s Wikipedia entry: “In 2010, US Army intelligence analyst PFC Chelsea Manning used Wget to download the 250,000 US diplomatic cables and 500,000 Army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs sent to WikiLeaks.”

    Meanwhile, cURL (not to be confused with the scripting language Curl) is another tool for moving data and objects over the Internet. The software, which is a GitHub project, provides a command line and a library for transferring data with URL syntax over a wide variety of protocols.

    The cURL (which means “see URL”) supports the libcurl library, which allows it to support HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, TFTP, SCP, SFTP, TELNET, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS, FILE, IMAP, SMTP, POP3, RTSP and RTMP, according to its GitHub listing.

    According to IBM, one of the big benefits of cURL is that it supports advanced features, like proxies, HTTP POST and GET requests, FTP upload, and user authentication, the company says in its IBM i 7.3 TR2 announcement letter. (All three of the open source solutions discussed here are available with IBM i 7.2 TR6 as well.)

    IBM i developers adopting open source programming languages drove the addition of cURL, says Jesse Gorzinski, business architect for IBM i open source. “Some of the Python libraries that do cURL-like things rely on cURL to get it done,” he told Burger. “One of the things we have done is enable the Curl-like things in Node.js and Python that rely on the underlying Curl library.

    IBM has also modified its open source Git offering to support cURL. Git, of course, is the distributed version control system created by Linus Torvalds a dozen years ago to manage the development of Linux, and which IBM brought to IBM i last year with the launch of IBM i 7.3. Adding cURL support to Git (found in Option 6 of 5733-OPS) allows for the interaction of remote repositories with HTTP addresses, IBM says.

    Last but not least is the addition of rsync to both IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3 (no more soup for you, IBM i 7.1!). Another Unix-era utility, rsync is a utility for efficiently transferring and synchronizing files or entire directories from one computer to another.

    According to its Wikipedia entry, the utility uses a delta encoding algorithm to minimize network usage. If the receiving computer has a file that’s similar to, but not identical, to the file being sent, it will employ an algorithmic method to determine what to send. It uses a combination of an MD5 hash and a rolling checksum hash to determine exact differences between the two files.

    Originally released in the late 1990s by its original developers, Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras, rsync today can be found in all Linux distributions, and has since been ported to Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, MacOS, and, now, the IBM i OS. It’s distributed under a GNU General Public License (GPL). The software, which is renowned for its speed, flexibility, and script-ability, has also found its way into a number of commercial products.

    All of these products were added to Option 7 IBM i Open Source solutions (5733-OPS).

    RELATED STORIES

    IBM i Open Source Business Architect Lays Out A Plan

    7 Must-Have Open Source Products for IBM i

    Get Your Git On, IBM i

    MariaDB Dropping In On IBM i To Replace MySQL

    GCC: Bringing More Open Source Software to IBM i

    Keep An i On Open Source

    A Peek At Upcoming Open Source Enhancements In IBM i

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: IBM i, Open Source, Technology Refreshes, Wget

    Sponsored by
    DRV Technologies, Inc.

    Get More from Your IBM i

    Many users today struggle to get at the data they need on the IBM i. When users get reports, they look like they were formatted some time last century.

    Some organizations are still printing pre-printed forms and checks on impact printers.

    How often do operators log on to their system to look for messages they hope they don’t find?

    All of these scenarios can affect users’ perception of the IBM platform negatively, but there are simple solutions.

    DRV Technologies Inc. develops innovative solutions that help customers get more from their IBM i systems.

    Solutions include:

    • SpoolFlex spool conversion & distribution
    • FormFlex electronic forms
    • SecureChex MICR laser check printing
    • MessageFlex system monitoring

    FlexTools streamline resources, improve efficiency and enable pro-active system management.

    Better software, better service, DRV Tech.

    Learn how you can get more from your IBM i at www.drvtech.com

    Call 866 378-3366 for a Free Demonstration

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Linoma Climbs the File Transfer Ladder Top 11 Ways to Protect Your IBM i from Insider Threats

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 27 Issue: 11

This Issue Sponsored By

  • ProData Computer Services
  • COMMON
  • BCD
  • T.L. Ashford
  • WorksRight Software

Table of Contents

  • Top 11 Ways to Protect Your IBM i from Insider Threats
  • IBM i TRs Bring New Open Source Data Transfer Tools
  • Linoma Climbs the File Transfer Ladder
  • Four Hundred Monitor, February 22
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 19, Number 7

Content archive

  • The Four Hundred
  • Four Hundred Stuff
  • Four Hundred Guru

Recent Posts

  • Security Still Top Concern, IBM i Marketplace Study Says
  • Bob Langieri Shares IBM i Career Trends Outlook for 2023
  • Kisco Brings Native SMS Messaging to IBM i
  • Four Hundred Monitor, February 1
  • 2023 IBM i Predictions, Part 4
  • Power Systems Did Indeed Grow Revenues Last Year
  • The IBM Power Trap: Three Mistakes That Leave You Stuck
  • Big Blue Decrees Its 2023 IBM Champions
  • As I See It: The Good, the Bad, And The Mistaken
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 5

Subscribe

To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

Pages

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Contributors
  • Four Hundred Monitor
  • IBM i PTF Guide
  • Media Kit
  • Subscribe

Search

Copyright © 2022 IT Jungle

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.