• Admin Alert: Getting Started with i/OS Security Auditing, Part 2

  October 6, 2010 Joe Hertvik

  Last month, I discussed how to configure security auditing in an i/OS V5R4Mx environment. This issue, I’ll look at the other side of the equation and discuss what you can do with your security auditing data once you have it. I’ll look at some of the reporting facilities available on the system and how to take advantage of them. Before Getting Started If you’re just getting started, you may want to review part 1 of this series to make sure your iSeries, System i, or Power i box is configured correctly for security auditing. The techniques I’m presenting here

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• RPG Sorting and Searching: A 7.1 Update

  September 29, 2010 Susan Gantner

  Back in 2008, I wrote a tip about using SORTA and group fields in RPG to easily sort array data, such as subfile data. Array Data Structures existed back when I wrote the original tip, but SORTA was not supported at that time. So I was forced to use the less-than-obvious group fields technique described in that tip. With new support in RPG 7.1, things have changed, so I’m revisiting the example with an updated look. The example program that I used before was very simple to retrofit to utilize an actual Array Data Structure. The definition of the array

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• CASE Simplifies SQL Update

  September 29, 2010 Hey, Ted

  I need to run a series of similar updates against 12 groups in a very large physical file (millions of records). Is there a way I can combine the updates into one SQL update command? I’d rather have the system read the file once, not 12 times. –Jim Here’s an example that illustrates Jim’s update. Set the minimum order quantity to 12 for all items in class A1. update items set minordqty = 12 where class = 'A1' If Jim has 12 class values, he has to run 12 update commands. However, if he were to use a CASE structure,

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• Feeding the Auditor: Taking Care of Problem User Profiles

  September 29, 2010 Hey, Joe

  Help. My iSeries shop is being audited. The auditors want a list of all users who have default passwords. They also want us to automatically disable any user profiles that haven’t been active for 60 days. I don’t want to automatically disable my inactive users because I have a lot of profiles that should never be disabled on our system. How do I handle this? I’m on i/OS V5R4M5. –Brett Finding your default password users is easy. Simply run the following Analyze Default Password (ANZDFTPWD) command and you’ll get a listing of all system users whose password is equal to

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• Get Thee to the Web, Part 3

  September 22, 2010 Paul Tuohy

  In this final article, we will compare and contrast the scripting solutions available with CGIDEV2, PHP, and Java. Here are a few questions to keep in mind when considering which scripting language to use: How well does it integrate with HTML/CSS/Javascript? How well does it integrate with database? How well does it integrate with host language calls? How easy is it to learn? What educational resources are available? Is it well supported? What frameworks are available? (Frameworks allow for very rapid development of interfaces.) Is scalability an issue? (How many people will be using your application.) CGIDEV2 CGIDEV2 is a

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• Merge Into the Synchronization Fast Lane with DB2 for i 7.1

  September 22, 2010 Michael Sansoterra

  One of the tedious chores that many developers face is keeping many different data sources synchronized. It is common for mid- to large-sized companies to have multiple software packages with requirements to keep synchronized copies of the item master, customer master, employee master, and other master files. Other common synchronization tasks involve keeping aggregate tables of detailed data or even synchronizing DB2 data with a relational or non-relational remote data source, including remote databases, Web services, flat files, etc. Fortunately, to help with all of this, IBM has updated DB2 for i 7.1 to include support for the SQL MERGE

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• Changing i/OS Password Expiration Settings

  September 22, 2010 Hey, Joe

  We found a number of user profiles on our i/OS box that have password expiration intervals of *NOMAX, meaning that their passwords will never expire. We’re changing their expiration interval to *SYSVAL, so that each user profile takes its password expiration interval from the global system value. How long after I make this change will the users be required to change their passwords? I’m on i/OS V5R4M5. –Joe Before I get to the solution, it’s worth reviewing how the password expiration interval is calculated for an IBM iSeries, System i, or Power i user on an i/OS V5R4Mx partition.

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• Get Thee to the Web, Part 2

  September 15, 2010 Paul Tuohy

  In this second article of three, we will continue our exploration of moving to the Web by having a look at the rest of the common components of Web applications. Tiered Design This is probably the most important part of designing any Web application. It is essential that the application is tiered in such a way that the interface is separate from the database is separate from the business logic. The basic concept is that you should be able to change any of the components without affecting the other components. Although this has always been a good principle of any

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• Basing Pointer Variables in RPG: The Basics

  September 15, 2010 Ted Holt

  When I began pursuit of my computer science degree eons ago, the only programming experience I had was business programming. Jumping from System/34 RPG II to Pascal was a shock, but learning Pascal was one of the best things that ever happened to me professionally. Learning Pascal introduced me to programming constructs that I had not seen before, including pointer variables, the topic of this article. If you’ve not mastered pointers, continue reading. Do it for your own edification. RPG has two types of pointer variables: basing pointers, and procedure pointers. Both types of pointers hold memory addresses. Both types

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• Admin Alert: Getting Started with i/OS Security Auditing, Part 1

  September 15, 2010 Joe Hertvik

  Sometimes you need more information about what’s happening on your system. Who changed their password? Have any system values been changed recently? Who added an entry to the System Reply list? For company security and auditor information, sometimes you need to gather information about system events. That’s where i/OS security auditing comes in. Security Auditing in Two Paragraphs IBM i/OS security auditing allows you to collect information about system events that can affect system security and integrity. To implement auditing, a user configures his system and specifies what types of information he wants to collect. After turning auditing on, he

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