The EntireX RPC Server for IBM® AS/400® enables you to remotely call server programs written in all ILE-based languages, for example C, COBOL, RPG.

This document describes how to administer the RPC Server for AS/400. It covers the following topics:

• Customizing the RPC Server

• Configuring the RPC Server Side

• Configuring the IBM AS/400 Side

• Using SSL/TLS with the RPC Server

• Starting the RPC Server

• Stopping the RPC Server

• Pinging the RPC Server

• Running an EntireX RPC Server as a Windows Service

• Application Identification

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Customizing the RPC Server

The following are used to set up the RPC Server for AS/400:

• Configuration File

• Start Script

Configuration File

The default name of the configuration file is entirex.as400.properties. The RPC Server for AS/400 searches for this file in the current working directory.

You can set the name of the configuration file with -Dentirex.server.properties=<your file name> with "/" as file separator.

The configuration file contains the configuration for both parts of the RPC Server for AS/400.

Configuring more than one RPC Server

If you configure more than one RPC Server for AS/400 that connect to the same broker, the following items must be distinct:

• the trace output file (property entirex.server.logfile)

• the log for the Windows Service (property entirex.server.serverlog)

Start Script

The start script for the RPC Server for AS/400 is called as400server.bsh (Linux) or as400server.bat (Windows) and is provided in the bin folder of the installation directory. You may customize this file. The RPC Server for AS/400 itself is contained in the file entirex.jar.

Configuring the RPC Server Side

The RPC Server for AS/400 uses the properties that start with "entirex.server" for configuring the RPC server side.

Alternatively to the properties, you can use the command-line options. These have a higher priority than the properties set as Java system properties, and these have higher priority than the properties in the configuration file.

Property Name	Command-line Option	Default	Explanation
entirex.server.brokerid	-broker	localhost	Broker ID.  More info
entirex.server.serveraddress	-server	RPC/SRV1/CALLNAT	Server address.
entirex.server.userid	-user	AS400RPCServer	The user ID for access to the broker.
entirex.server.fixedservers		no	NO The number of worker threads balances between what is specified in entirex.server.minservers and what is specified in entirex.server.maxservers. This is done by a so-called attach thread. At startup, the number of worker threads is the number specified in entirex.server.minservers. A new worker thread starts if the broker has more requests than there are worker threads waiting. If more than the number specified in entirex.server.minservers are waiting for requests, a worker thread stops if its receive call times out. The timeout period is configured with entirex.server.waitserver. See worker model DYNAMIC. YES The number of worker threads specified in entirex.server.minservers is started and the server can process this number of parallel requests. See worker model FIXED.
entirex.server.minservers		1	Minimum number of server threads.
entirex.server.maxservers		32	Maximum number of server threads.
entirex.server.restartcycles	-restartcycles	15	Number of restart attempts if the Broker is not available. This can be used to keep the RPC Server for AS/400 running while the Broker is down for a short time.
entirex.server.compresslevel	-compresslevel	0 (no compression)	Enter the text or the numeric value: BEST_COMPRESSION  9 BEST_SPEED  1 DEFAULT_COMPRESSION   (mapped to -1  6) DEFLATED  8 NO_COMPRESSION  0 N  0 Y  8  More info
entirex.server.password	-password	yes	The password for secured access to the broker. The password is encrypted and written to the property entirex.server.password.e. To change the password, set the new password in the properties file. To disable password encryption, set entirex.server.passwordencrypt=no. Default=yes.
entirex.server.security	-security	no	Valid values: no | yes | auto | name of BrokerSecurity object.
entirex.server.waitattach		600S	Wait timeout for the attach server thread.
entirex.server.waitserver		300S	Wait timeout for the worker threads.
entirex.timeout		20	TCP/IP transport timeout.  More info
	-help		Display usage of the command-line parameters.
entirex.server.logfile	-logfile	standard output	Name of the log file.
entirex.trace	-trace	0	Trace level.  More info 0 No tracing, default. 1 Trace all broker calls and other major actions. 2 Dump the send and receive buffer. 3 Dump the buffers sent to the broker and received from the broker.

Configuring the IBM AS/400 Side

These properties are used to configure the connection to AS/400.

Name	Default Value	Explanation
as400.host		Host name of AS/400 system (IBM i). Mandatory.
as400.programpath	/QSYS.LIB/%library%.LIB/%program%.PGM	The fully qualified integrated file system path name to the program. %library% is replaced by the IDL file library name and %program% is replaced by the IDL file program name. The library and program name must each be 10 characters or less.
entirex.bridge.targetencoding	cp037	Specify the appropriate EBCDIC encoding which corresponds to the CCSID (Coded Character Set Identifier) of your AS/400 system. This codepage is also used when communicating with the EntireX Broker. Enable character conversion in the broker by setting the service-specific attribute CONVERSION to "SAGTRPC". See also Configuring ICU Conversion under z/OS | Linux | Windows | BS2000. More information can be found under Internationalization with EntireX. Default "cp037" is EBCDIC codepage with full Latin-1 character set.
as400.timeout	50	Maximum time to run the program in seconds.
as400.userid		The user profile name to use to authenticate to the system.
as400.password		The user profile password to use to authenticate to the system.

Using SSL/TLS with the RPC Server

To use SSL with the RPC Server for AS/400, you need to configure the RPC Server Side.

RPC servers can use Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) as the transport medium. The term "SSL" in this section refers to both SSL and TLS. RPC-based servers are always SSL clients. The SSL server can be either the EntireX Broker or Broker SSL Agent. For an introduction see SSL/TLS, HTTP(S), and Certificates with EntireX in the platform-independent Administration documentation.

To use SSL

1. To operate with SSL, certificates need to be provided and maintained. Depending on the platform, Software AG provides sample certificates, but we strongly recommend that you create your own. See SSL/TLS Sample Certificates Delivered with EntireX in the EntireX Security documentation.

2. Set up the RPC Server for AS/400 for an SSL connection.

   Use the URL-style Broker ID with protocol ssl:// for the Broker ID. If no port number is specified, port 1958 is used as default. Example:

   ssl://localhost:22101?trust_store=C:\SoftwareAG\EntireX\etc\ExxCACert.p12&trust_passwd=ExxCACert&verify_server=no

   If the SSL client checks the validity of the SSL server only, this is known as one-way SSL. Two SSL parameters must be specified on the SSL client side: trust_store and trust_passwd. The mandatory trust_store parameter specifies the file name of a PKCS#12 certificate store that must contain the certificate chain of the trusted certificate authority (CA) that issued the SSL server's certificate.
   To unlock this certificate store, the password has to be set with SSL parameter trust_passwd.
   By default a check is made that the certificate of the SSL server is issued for the hostname specified in the Broker ID. The common name of the subject entry in the server's certificate is checked against the hostname. If they do not match, the connection will be refused.
   You can disable this check with SSL parameter verify_server=no.

   If the SSL server additionally checks the identity of the SSL client, this is known as two-way SSL. In this case the SSL server requests a client certificate (the parameter verify_client=yes is defined in the configuration of the SSL server). Two additional SSL parameters must be specified on the SSL client side: key_store and key_passwd. This keystore must contain the private key of the SSL client. The password that protects the private key is specified with key_passwd.

   The ampersand (&) character cannot appear in the password.

   SSL parameters are separated by ampersand (&). See also SSL/TLS Parameters for SSL Clients.

3. Make sure the SSL server to which the RPC side connects is prepared for SSL connections as well. The SSL server can be EntireX Broker or Broker SSL Agent. See:

   • Running Broker with SSL/TLS Transport under z/OS | Linux | Windows

   • Broker SSL Agent (Linux | Windows)

Starting the RPC Server

To start the RPC Server for AS/400

• Use the Start Script.

  Or:
  Under Windows you can use the RPC Server for AS/400 as a Windows Service. See Running an EntireX RPC Server as a Windows Service.

Stopping the RPC Server

To stop the RPC Server for AS/400

• Use the command-line utility etbcmd. See ETBCMD under z/OS | Linux | Windows | BS2000.

  Or:
  Use CTRL-C in the session where you started the RPC server instance.

  Or:
  Under Linux, enter command kill -process-id.

Pinging the RPC Server

To ping the RPC Server for AS/400

• Enter the following command:

  java -classpath "$EXXDIR/classes/entirex.jar" com.softwareag.entirex.rpcping.RPCServerPing -p <admin_port>

  where

  admin_port

  is the number of the administration port.

  The ping command returns "0" if the server is reachable, and "1" if the server cannot be accessed.

Running an EntireX RPC Server as a Windows Service

For general information see Running an EntireX RPC Server as a Windows Service in the Windows Administration documentation.

To run the RPC Server for AS/400 as a Windows Service

1. Customize the Start Script according to your system installation.

   Note:
   The script must pass external parameters to the RPC server and use the reduced signaling of the JVM (option -Xrs):

   java -Xrs com.softwareag.entirex.as400bridge.AS400RPCServer %*

   If -Xrs is not used, the JVM stops and an entry 10164002 is written to the event log when the user logs off from Windows.

   See also Starting the RPC Server.

2. Test your RPC server to see whether it will start if you run your script file.

3. Use the EntireX RPC Service Tool and install the RPCService with some meaningful extension, for example MyServer. If your Start Script is as400server.bat, the command will be

   RPCService -install -ext MyServer -script install_path\EntireX\bin\as400server.bat

   The log file will be called RPCservice_MyServer.log.

4. In Windows Services menu (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services) select the service: Software AG EntireX RPC Service [MyServer] and change the property Startup Type from "Manual" to "Automatic".

Application Identification

The application identification is sent from the RPC Server for AS/400 to the Broker. It is visible with Broker Command and Information Services.

The identification consists of four parts: name, node, type, and version. These four parts are sent with each Broker call and are visible in the trace information.

For the RPC Server for AS/400, these values are:

Identification Part	Value
Application name	ANAME=RPC Server for IBM® AS/400®
Node name	ANODE=<host name>
Application type	ATYPE=Java
Version	AVERS=10.9.0.0