Note:
For an overview of all Natural add-on products and the new product
versions available, see Overview of
New Natural Add-On Product Versions.
This is an overview of the customer feature requests submitted in the Brainstorm portal of Software AG's Empower web site at https://empower.softwareag.com/ that have been implemented in the following Natural add-on products released with Natural Version 8.2.5:
| Product | Request Number | Feature Request |
|---|---|---|
| Natural CICS Interface | 00146 | Provide option to switch between conversational
and pseudo-conversational in CICS: see USR8212N in
Application Programming
Interfaces in Natural CICS
Interface.
|
| Natural RPC | 00459 | Enhance the Service Directory Maintenance function of the SYSRPC utility to facilitate library maintenance: see Replace Option for Service Directory Items in SYSRPC Utility and SYSRPC System Command. |
| Natural RPC | 01865 | Improve explanation of Reason 11 in the NAT6975 (security error) system message. |
| Natural RPC | 02124 | Provide user exit to set transaction ID for impersonation under CICS: see RPCSFEX1 - User Exit for Impersonation under CICS in the Natural RPC documentation. |
| Natural Security | 01329 | Enhance Natural Security log reporting: see Logging of Maintenance Functions in Administrator Services. |
See also Customer Feature Requests for Base Natural.
The Natural CICS Interface now also supports the CICS Transaction Server for z/OS Version 5.2.
The Natural profile parameter SKEY now provides
the option to dynamically switch to run Natural in CICS key if required.
For more information, see SKEY in the
Parameter Reference documentation.
This new FDTPX generation parameter of the
NCMPRM macro provides the option to determine whether the
NCIDTPEX terminal exit interface is called for all types of
terminals used in your environment.
For more information, see FDTPX and
NCIDTPEX - DTP Terminal
Exit Interface in the TP Monitor
Interfaces documentation.
See also the new XNCITIOX sample terminal exit interface
and the new XNCIFRNN sample front-end program supplied in the
Natural CICS source library.
The following new Natural application programming interface (API) in
the SYSEXT system library is supplied for Natural CICS Interface:
| API | Task | Enhancement |
|---|---|---|
USR8212N |
Switch to conversational mode under CICS | This new API switches a pseudo-conversational session in CICS into conversational mode and vice versa. |
The default setting of the SKEY profile parameter (see the
Parameter Reference documentation) has changed from
ON to OFF.
Important:
If you run Natural under Com-plete and have storage keys other
than the keys 8 and 9 assigned to your Com-plete threads, we strongly recommend
that you set SKEY=ON to avoid performance degradation. This is
likely to be the problem when you use the Software AG Editor, for example, in
connection with Natural ISPF.
Support for the multi-session function has been discontinued and is no longer available for Natural IMS TM Interface. As a result:
The NTIMSPE and NTIMSPT macros in the
Natural parameter module no longer support the keyword subparameters listed in
Changed/Enhanced
Profile Parameters. They are still accepted for
compatibility reasons but otherwise ignored.
The Natural SYSTP utility no longer provides the Multi Session function.
An NIITRTAB transaction code table previously generated
by the NIMTRNTG macro is still supported for compatibility
reasons. However, any changes to transaction codes must be defined in the
NTIMSPT macro of the Natural parameter module. The
NTIMSPT definitions are checked first, followed by the
NIITRTAB entries.
The NIIPARM parameter module previously generated by the
NIMPARM macro is no longer supported. You have to use the
NTIMSPT macro in the Natural parameter module instead.
The BS2000/OSD file maintenance facility now also provides the option to display the date and time when a file was last modified. For details, refer to the section BS2000/OSD Files in the User's Guide of the Natural ISPF documentation in the Documentation section of Software AG's Empower web site at http://documentation.softwareag.com/.
For information on changes, enhancements and new features available with NaturalONE, see the Release Notes in the NaturalONE documentation in the Documentation section of Software AG's Empower web site at http://documentation.softwareag.com/.
EntireX Encryption will be deprecated with the next version of EntireX.
For encrypted transport, Software AG strongly recommends that you use the Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security protocol. The relevant sections in the Natural RPC documentation have been updated accordingly.
Applications that execute with EntireX Encryption are still supported for compatibility reasons.
For more information, see SSL/TLS and Certificates with EntireX in the EntireX documentation.
- New APIs
The following Natural RPC-specific application programming interfaces (APIs) have been added in the
SYSEXTsystem library:
API Task USR4371NSet User ID and ETID for RPC On the RPC client side, this API sets the user ID and ETID for Natural RPC servers which were configured with
Impersonation = A(automatic logon).USR8213NShutdown a server on EntireX Broker Terminate a single Natural RPC server by using the sequence number returned for the required server.
- Changed APIs
The following Natural RPC-specific APIs have changed: they no longer support EntireX Location Transparency.
API Task RPC-CNTXMaintain RPC context for Natural clients. USR2071NSupport EntireX Security on client side. USR2073NPing or terminate an RPC server. USR2074NSet new password for Natural Security user in RPC context. USR2075NTerminate EntireX Broker service. All
USR*APIs are contained in theSYSEXTsystem library,RPC-CNTXis contained in theSYSRPCsystem library.
The highest API version of the EntireX ACI that Natural RPC, the EntireX Broker stub and the EntireX Broker support is now determined automatically on z/VSE platforms.
As a result, the ACIVERS
keyword subparameter of the RPC profile parameter has
become obsolete and is ignored on z/VSE. ACIVERS is described in
the Parameter Reference documentation.
The new RPCSFEX1 user exit can be used to set specific
CICS transaction IDs for impersonated RPC requests.
For detailed information, see RPCSFEX1 - User Exit for Impersonation under CICS in the Natural RPC documentation.
- Replace Option for Service Directory Items
The Service Directory Maintenance function now provides the option to search for and replace single or multiple nodes, servers, libraries and/or programs. For more information, see the new
REPLACEdirect command and corresponding PF key described in Direct Commands and PF Keys in the section Service Directory Maintenance in the SYSRPC Utility documentation.The replace function can also be executed with the
SYSRPCsystem command.- Discontinued Support for Logical Names
The Service Directory Maintenance and the Server Command Execution functions of the SYSRPC utility no longer support logical node and server names previously supplied by EntireX.
See also Discontinued Support for EntireX Location Transparency.
Note:
The sections indicated for more information are contained in the
Natural Security
documentation, unless otherwise
noted.
- New Step for Loading Logon and Data Files
A new step for Natural Security installations on Adabas supports the new Store Logon and Error Data on Separate System Files function: see the relevant announcement in Administrator Services below.
The Administrator Services options described in this section only apply if Adabas is installed in your environment.
- Logging of Maintenance Functions
Whenever you modify a security profile, Natural Security automatically adjusts related security profiles to ensure the consistency of all Natural Security definitions. For example, if you modify a group profile to remove a user from the group, Natural Security will automatically modify the user profile to remove that group from the list of the user’s Privileged Groups if required.
As of this version, the general option Logging of Maintenance Functions will not only log the profile modifications themselves but also the automatic adjustments of related profiles.
- Store Logon and Error Data on Separate System Files
With previous versions, all Natural Security data were stored on a single FSEC system file.
As of this version, you can store the following data on separate system files:
logon records,
logon/countersign error records,
maintenance log records.
These system files can be specified with the new general option Store Logon and Error Data on Separate System Files.
All other definitions of Natural Security settings, object definitions and object relations will still be stored on the main FSEC system file.
For the resulting changes in installation, see the new installation step Load the Logon and Error Log File for z/OS, z/VSE and BS2000/OSD in Installing Natural Security.
The Link Users to Library selection list now also displays the user types of the users listed.
The use of certain subprograms can be restricted generally by disallowing modules in library (and special link) security profiles. In a Natural RPC server context, you can now further restrict the use of subprograms so that only specific users can access a server, and only via specific subprograms. For this purpose, RPC server profiles provide a new option Service Protection; in addition, functions for Allowing/Disallowing Services are available.
The application programming interfaces
NSCADM,
example program PGMADM02, and
NSCXR,
example program PGMXR006, provide a new subcode D:
This can be used for the maintenance/retrieval of logon records sorted by
date.
If the FSEC system file is read-only (profile parameter
FSEC=(dbid,fnr,,,RO) or
ROSY=ON), any attempt to invoke a Natural Security maintenance
function which would cause an update to the system file will be rejected with
error NAT1012.