Big Blue Delivers IBM i Customer Requests In ACS Update
August 25, 2025 Alex Woodie
Christmas is still four months away, but that didn’t stop IBM from giving Access Client Solutions (ACS) customers the new features they requested. The deliveries were made in the mid-summer update, ACS version 1.1.9.9.
ACS is the must-have tool that lives in every IBM i professional’s toolbox. It contains a slew of facilities for interacting with the system, including RSS, data transfer, IFS file viewing, spool file management, 5250 emulator, 5250 printer emulation, and a virtual console for LAN and HMC management.
IBM updates ACS several times a year regardless of the Technology Refresh cycle, as is typical with several important IBM i facilities, notably RDi, Navigator, and PowerHA. With the July delivery of ACS version 1.1.9.9, IBM has delivered a handful of user requests for the tool.
For example, when a user creates multiple connections using the “acsbundle.jar /PLUGIN=cfg command,” it can take a long time to process the command, since every connection to each system runs in its own JVM, according to one Mac user. “If we could string multiple commands into one JVM process this would greatly improve the run time,” the user wrote in the IBM Ideas portal. IBM agreed that it was good idea, and delivered a new capability to allow “multiple ACS command-line plugins to be called from a single invocation of ACS,” IBM said in its ACS 1.1.9.9 announcement.
Similarly, cleaning up temporary files created by ACS can be inconvenient, since it requires an IPL if ACS is running directly on IBM i. One user requested that ACS clean up its own files when things are running as expected. IBM agreed, and delivered a couple of new features designed to thwart the buildup of temporary files in version 1.1.9.9, including the new property “com.ibm.iaccess.DaysTemporaryFilesAllowed” and a new “/cleartempfiles” parameter set to “/plugin=maint.”
Microsoft manages to sneak its cloud-based OneDrive into all sorts of file system activities, even when it’s unwanted. One user that adopted OneDrive Desktop reported having trouble getting ACS to recognize the cloud-based storage. The default desktop location now had OneDrive in the file path, but ACS wasn’t having any of it. “Being able to change the desktop location in ‘Local Settings’ or the configuration file should help to get files saving to the correct desktop location with OneDrive,” the user wrote in the IBM Ideas portal. IBM agreed, and users can now override the default desktop location with the new property “com.ibm.iaccess.DesktopLocation.”
The next new ACS feature was added at the request of an IBM i user working in a Citrix environment. The administrator had many users with different needs and access-levels to support, and asked if it would be possible to create multiple AcsConfig.properties in different subfolders. IBM agreed that was a good use of its development resources, and it delivered the requested capability by adding a new property to “com.ibm.iaccess.AcsConfig” that allows users to override location and name of AcsConfig.properties.
Another user asked if IBM would please show the system name or directory location where updates originate from. “This will be helpful to make sure of the target version that is being updated,” the user wrote in the IBM Ideas portal. IBM responded with a new ACS function that “shows the configured system name for the command-line plugins that check or apply updates,” IBM said.
On the security front, IBM added support for passphrase-protected SSH keys used by the Open Source Package Management component. This wasn’t tied to a specific request, but reflects IBM’s continued focus on improving security.
IBM added a new user-requested feature to the cldownload plugin that will improve how the system handles queries that are used to generate spreadsheets that are then stored on the IFS. The user expressed concern that the plugin restricts the size of the SQL query. IBM responded by adding a new sqlfile parameter to the cldownload plugin that supports a UTF-8 encoded file that contains a single SQL query, IBM says.
Another user-requested feature is directed at the IFS Send function in ACS. If the object being created is bigger than the temporary space that ACS creates on ASP1, then it can crash the system. IBM responded to the user request by adding a new property, “com.ibm.iaccess.ifs.VerifyAvailableSpace,” that checks to make sure there’s enough available space.
Users can now see the text attribute as an optional column besides the directories and stream files in ACS. This new feature was added at the request of a user who wanted to see the text attributes but was stymied. The new feature in ACS 1.1.9.9 should address this concern.
IBM added three new schema features to ACS, including a new “Work With–>Journal Receivers” action that gives the user a list of all related ACS schema receivers. This came thanks to a user who was frustrated that he or she had to jump to the command line or use Navigator to get this information. Another user-requested feature – a change to the Table Definition dialog – will allow admins to drop tables without *ALLOBJ authority. The last schema-related addition is the addition of support for the “Generate SQL…” function to save previous directory paths, which was added at the request of a user who was frustrated that they had to type the network path for the DDL every time they generated DDL.
There’s a new index evaluator SQL in the SQL Performance Center that prompts for a schema and table and then launches the Work with Indexes. That feature was not tied to a specific user request. IBM also bolstered the popular Run SQL Scripts facility with support for the tweaks made with IBM i 7.6 SQL syntax.
IBM also added 16 new Insert from Example. They’re all security related, and cover various areas of the system, including the audit journal, Db2 for i database, IFS, special authority, and user profiles.
Finally, IBM added a host of miscellaneous improvements and fixes to ACS, including support for using the Windows Ctrl-A command (or Command-A on the Mac) to “select all” when in a terminal session started by the Open Source Package Management component. IBM also corrected the list of entries in the IFS most recently used directories drop down, and made it so the selected system on the ACS main panel is in view when entering System Configurations.
You can download the latest release of ACS from the IBM i Access Client Solutions download page.
