The EntireX RPC Server for CICS® IPIC allows standard RPC clients to communicate with CICS programs running on IBM CICS® without installing EntireX components on the mainframe (Zero Footprint). The CICS interface types Channel Container and DFHCOMMAREA are supported.

• Customizing the RPC Server

• Configuring the RPC Server Side

• Configuring the CICS IPIC 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 CICS IPIC:

• Configuration File

• Start Script

Configuration File

The default name of the configuration file is entirex.cicsipic.properties. The RPC Server for CICS IPIC 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 CICS IPIC.

Configuring more than one RPC Server

If you configure more than one RPC Server for CICS IPIC 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 CICS IPIC is called cicsipicserver.bsh (Linux) or cicsipicserver.bat (Windows) and is provided in the bin folder of the installation directory. You may customize this file.

Configuring the RPC Server Side

The RPC Server for CICS IPIC 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	RPCServer	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 CICS IPIC running while the Broker is down for a short time.
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.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.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 CICS IPIC Side

These properties are used to configure the connection to CICS IPIC.

Alternatively, 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.

Name	Default Value	Explanation
cics.ipic.host		Host name or IP address where CICS is running.
cics.ipic.port		TCP or SSL port number (1-65535) of CICS IPIC.
cics.ipic.transaction	CPMI	Transaction ID (1-4 chars). Name of the CICS mirror transaction that will receive transactions.
cics.ipic.networkid		Client Network ID (max. 8 chars) to match target IPCONN. See your IBM documentation for more information.
cics.ipic.applid		Client Application ID (max. 8 chars) to match target IPCONN. See your IBM documentation for more information.
cics.ipic.sendsessions	100	Number of simultaneous transactions (1-999) allowed over the CICS connection. See your IBM documentation for more information.
entirex.bridge.targetencoding	cp037	Specify the appropriate EBCDIC encoding used by your CICS installation. Default is codepage cp037 with full Latin-1 character set.
cics.ipic.sockettimeout	10000	Socket timeout for connection to CICS IPIC (in milliseconds).
cics.ipic.userid		The user ID (max. 8 chars) as defined in your underlying mainframe security system (e.g. RACF).
cics.ipic.password	yes	Password/passphrase as defined in your underlying mainframe security system (e.g. RACF). The password or passphrase is encrypted and written to the property cics.ipic.password.e. To change the password or passphrase, set the new password in the properties file. To disable password, passphrase and/or secured signon key encryption, set entirex.server.passwordencrypt=no.
cics.ipic.sslparams		SSL parameters. Same syntax as Broker ID.
cics.ipic.application.name (1)		Required if PassTicket is to be used instead of a password. Application name (1-8 chars) as defined in your RACF system. This property is ignored if RACF password is set.
cics.ipic.secured.signonkey (1)	yes	Required if PassTicket is to be used instead of a password. Secured signon key as defined in your RACF system. Must be exactly 16 characters long. The secured signon key is encrypted and written to the property cics.slipic.secured.signonkey.e. To change the secured signon key, set the new secured signon key in the properties file. To disable password, passphrase and/or secured signon key encryption, set entirex.server.passwordencrypt=no. This property is ignored if cics.ipic.password is set.

Notes:

1. By default, PassTickets can only be used once during a one-second time interval. They are protected against replay. This limits the workload to one request per second.

   Warning: IBM provides a mechanism to bypass the PassTicket's replay mechanism, allowing higher workloads, but this introduces security risks. The option to bypass the PassTicket's replay mechanism should only be used in secure environments where access to generated PassTickets is limited to a secure or internal network. See your IBM documentation for more information.

Using SSL/TLS with the RPC Server

To use SSL with the RPC Server for CICS IPIC, you need to configure two sides:

• CICS Side
  See parameter cics.sl.sslparams.

• 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 CICS IPIC 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 CICS IPIC

• Use the Start Script.

Stopping the RPC Server

To stop the RPC Server for CICS IPIC

• Use the command stopService. See Stop Running Services in Command Central's Command-line Interface.

  Or:
  Stop the service using Command Central's Graphical User Interface. See Stopping a Service.

  Or:
  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 CICS IPIC

• 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 CICS IPIC as a Windows Service

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

   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 cicsipicserver.bat, the command will be

   RPCService -install -ext MyServer -script install_path\EntireX\bin\cicsipicserver.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 CICS IPIC 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 CICS IPIC, these values are:

Identification Part	Value
Application name	ANAME=RPC Server for CICS IPIC
Node name	ANODE=<host name>
Application type	ATYPE=Java
Version	AVERS=10.9.0.0