Re: Very importand (feature) - please read -- LINUX5250

On Fri, 27 Jul 2001, Patrick Bielen wrote:

> 1. Key-macros as in Client Access for windows.

I missed this too at first.  Now I'm not so sure I care if it is ever
implemented.  It certainly wouldn't hurt for people in your situation.  It
you really want to do this up right (IMHO) add a new protocol handler to
mozilla for the 5250 protocol.  Then you can use mozilla's built-in form
filling feature.  Plus you can embed the web right in your 5250 app.  Talk
about context sensitive help...

Gnome-5250 will have this feature available (or so it is claimed).

> 2. file transfer from or to an AS/400 as in CA for Win.

Yuck.  IMO this has no place in a 5250 emulator.  tn5250 displays the 5250
stream and sends keystrokes to the AS/400.  File transfer is a different
task than 5250 display.  Write a different program.

Note that this seems to contradict what I said above about mozilla.  But
it doesn't.  Mozilla is a platform and you could put a 5250 emulator on
that platform.  You could also put a file transfer program on the mozilla
platform - it already exists: ftp.

Keep to the unix philosophy: one small program that does one thing very
well.  Combine a bunch of little programs together to get big
functionality.

> 3. the possibility to connect (mount) to share-folders (windows-folders)
>    This one is maybe not possible with tn5250 (because of SNA) ?

This is the same as above - nothing to do with 5250 emulation.  No matter
how much IBM tries to make it so :)

IMO the dumbest thing IBM did with client access was to put SMB->AS/400
handlers on the clients instead of on the server.  With recent releases
they changed that.  But why they didn't just do it right the first time
and take advantage of existing network abilities I'll never understand.
Client Access doesn't *need* to know about shares and network
neighborhoods and all that.  It is already built into the OS.  Just do it
right on the server and *all* your SMB hosts will work with it.  Of course
this doesn't really help you with your problem :)

> 2. The reason for this feature is that we make a lot of queries with
>    our AS/400 and them import them to the pc (excel or staroffice)
>    to distribute them (databases) to our customers.
>    I think a lot of people are searching for such an option ?

Use ODBC and solve this problem if you are using excel.  Alternatively,
have your queries output to file and then put that file on the IFS.  Use
NFS to mount the IFS on your linux boxen.  NFS really is superior to SMB.
Import the resulting file into star office or just email it directly to
your customers.  Or write an ODBC driver to connect to the AS/400 and use
that directly from your linux box.  Or get IBM to do it.

> 3. the reason why i want to be able to mount such an AS/400 shared
>    directory is because all our windows-clients use such an dir at the
>    AS/400 to store their data (very handy because the AS/400 is
>    backupped every night, and because all data is stored at the AS/400
>    they are backupped every night to).

If your windows boxen are using the shared resource then why does your
linux box need it?  If you want to backup your linux box to the as/400 you
could:

1. create a tarball of your backup and ftp it over to the as/400 (this
could be done by cron).

2. mount the IFS using NFS or SMB and backup directly to it.

I saw your troubles using smbmount.  My as/400 doesn't do SMB so I can't
help you there (see previous rant about moronic IBM :) ).

James Rich
james@eaerich.com

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