RE: LDAP connections to the proper server, and unknown error??

Thanks Lim... 

..Is not likely to be down if that is your company mail server.

I agree and it's not, and not only that, it returned all the pings that I sent 
from the i5 system itself, as per Adam's suggestions. 

..are you trimming the tailing blank?  

        Yes, I am. Just before that I got through trying to debug the stat() 
API for getting info on an IFS file, and after much anguish, finally remembered 
that I should trim the trailing blanks on the file name. Oops. That was file 
names in the IFS, where those blanks are part of the name and length, but this 
applies to all string parameters in C. 

..Another thing to try is to remove the .com from the server name.

        I don't think that'll get it, I'm using exactly what they told me, and 
the IBM guy said it was good, but anyway, I will try that tomorrow (quitting 
time here). 

Meantime I'll be checking the list tonight, more suggestions are also accepted 
and appreciated. What happened will be reported here!

--Alan