• Code For i Continues To Grow. Here Is What’s New

  September 21, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Code for i has been the hottest open source project in the IBM i community for several years, and that popularity is not dropping. In fact, the community behind the red hot project continues to improve the VS Code-based development environment, including new functionality that we can expect to see released in the future.

  Code for i is a VS Code plug-in originally created by Liam Allan in 2021 to make Web-based development possible for ILE developers on IBM i. The project has exploded in popularity over the past five years, with nearly 93,000 installs recorded on the Microsoft Marketplace …

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• Inside The Security Enhancements In ACS

  August 24, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Keeping track of IBM i configurations and how users are using IBM i is important for security purposes. But administrators and analysts are already so overburdened with other responsibilities that it is easy to let something slip by. That is why IBM is building new SQL capabilities into Access Client Solutions, which hopefully will make it easier for IBM i shops to spot potentially damaging configs or uses before they hurt the organization.

  ACS is one of the most important tools provided by IBM for IBM i professionals, as it contains a slew of facilities for interacting with the system. …

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• Guru: Access Client Solutions 1.1.9.11 – Security First, With Continued Investment In SQL Tooling

  January 26, 2026 Gregory Simmons

  Big Blue has released IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS) version 1.1.9.11, and while the release is anchored by an important security fix, it also reflects IBM’s continued investment in the SQL tooling that has become central to day-to-day IBM i development and administration. This is not a feature-heavy update on its own, but it arrives after a series of releases that have steadily expanded the usefulness of both Run SQL Scripts and SQL Performance Center.

  The primary driver for upgrading to ACS 1.1.9.11 is the remediation of CVE-2025-66516, an XML External Entity vulnerability related to how ACS processes certain …

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• What You Will Find In IBM i 7.6 TR1 and IBM i 7.5 TR7

  October 13, 2025 Alex Woodie

  It’s early October, which means leaves are changing colors, nights are getting colder, and IBM developers in southern Minnesota and elsewhere are gearing up the autumnal Technology Refreshes for the IBM i operating system.

  With last week’s announcements of TR1 for IBM i 7.6 and TR7 for IBM i 7.5, which ship November 21, IBM has committed to delivering a slew of updates and new functionality across the range of IBM i system software, from application development to administration.

  Before we get into the specific areas of IBM i, let’s cover the general enhancements it made with I/O handling. For …

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• ACS Password Leaks Are A Security Issue On IBM i

  February 17, 2025 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are relying on the old WINLOGON process with their Access Client Solutions (ACS) installations will need to find a new way to synchronize passwords between Windows clients and IBM i servers. According to a new report from Silent Signal, the passwords could still be compromised.

  In early January, Big Blue published an IBM Support document about problems that IBM i shops were having after they applied the Windows 11 24H2 update, which Microsoft had started rolling out in October 2024. IBM i customers who used the ACS Windows Application Package told IBM they were no longer …

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• What’s New on PHP? Seiden Delivers the Goods

  October 23, 2024 Alex Woodie

  PHP has been around so long on the IBM i server that it’s practically a legacy technology at this point (not that that’s a bad thing). But if you haven’t looked at PHP lately, you might be surprised at what’s going on with the newer releases. PHP guru Alan Seiden recently brought us up to speed with the Web development language with a webinar sponsored by TUG.

  Seiden has been involved with PHP on IBM i for about 20 years. He was playing around with the open source language even before IBM and Zend worked together to bring the first …

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• IBM Bolsters Run SQL Scripts In ACS 1.1.9.6

  August 12, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week shipped a new release of Access Client Solutions (ACS) that contains several user-requested updates for Run SQL Scripts (RSS), the popular tool that allows users to execute SQL statements. ACS 1.1.9.6 also brings enhancements to the data transfer, IFS, and 5250 emulator components of ACS, among others.

  ACS, of course, is the universal Java-based utility that IBM unveiled 12 years ago to replace Client Access. It’s a must-have tool for any IBM i user, as it contains a slew of facilities for interacting with the system, including RSS, data transfer, IFS file viewing, spool file management, 5250 …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 31

  August 12, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  As we report elsewhere in this issue, the big news this week in IBM Software Land is a new release of Access Client Solutions, which is rolled out as a PTF update for the currently supported releases of the IBM i operating system. Our story is here, and the release notes are there.

  We did not see any new security vulnerabilities, which is always good news.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level since we last published:

  PTF Groups 7.5:

  • IBM i Access Client Solutions V1.1.9.6
  • SAP Support Required PTF List for IBM

  …

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• Spring 2024 IBM i Technology Refresh Unveiled by IBM

  May 8, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM today took the wraps off the latest Technology Refresh for the IBM i platform. When IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10 ship on June 14, customers will find enhancements such as Merlin version 2, new features in Navigator and ACS, security improvements, a couple of RPG enhancements, HA and DR enhancements, and a host of new SQL-based database services, among other capabilities.

  In addition to new features, which we’ll get to in a second, the launch of IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10 is important for an unexpected reason: It will mark the beginning of IBM’s transition …

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• April Showers Bring May IBM i Security Vulnerabilities

  May 8, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM has patched more than a dozen security flaws in IBM i and related products this spring, including serious flaws in the operating system proper and the compilers, and a critical vulnerability in Administrative Runtime Expert that landed a nearly perfect CVSS Base score.

  In the interest of time, let’s cover the security vulnerabilities in descending order of severity. That means we’re starting with the worst and then moving on to the slightly less worse.

  ARE Flaw

  The flaw reported in the Administration Runtime Expert for i (ARE), which IBM launched in 2010 to make it easier to manage IBM …

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