Re: Telnet 5250 in Linux or Browser

2009/11/11 Porterfield, Sean <SPorterfield@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

Simon Coulter

On 08/11/2009, at 9:13 AM, Pete Helgren wrote:

I don't have an HMC to test on but my money would be on the JVM. Any
idea which IBM JVM (assumed) is installed?

Doubt it's the JVM--isn't that running on the client running tn5250j
which then connects to the HMC? I suspect the issue is yet another
aspect of the incomplete data stream implementation. I suspect the
5250 data stream via HMC is wrapped in something else--perhaps a
passthrough data stream. This could be sufficiently different to
confuse tn5250j. Probably not difficult to fix but something for you
to consider. I suggest getting a trace of the connexion and initial
data stream to see what's really going on.

I agree with Simon (that's not a stretch typically).  I performed a V5R3 to V5R4 upgrade with HMC as console and tn5250 client connection through VPN.  At some point it got hung.  I was blaming a bad upgrade.  IBM had me power cycle the server.  Big mess ensued.  Could not reconnect console.  Eventually, I rebooted to Windows and ran iSeries Acccess.  Console was waiting patiently for me.  I forget the exact details related to when it failed and in what manner (it would sometimes show me a console then disconnect me, IIRC) but it was definitely something related to my client that caused many of my problems.  A simple upgrade turned into a 2 day affair because I believed the server had issues when it was my client.

So far I've not had any issues with the HMC using x5250. I connect
directly at work, or over ssh from home, using local host port
forwarding with my work box acting as the gateway. But then again I've
not tried an upgrade through it, and we do have a dedicated Windows
box that normally has console sessions on each of the LPARs that I can
connect to using remote desktop[1]

I did have more trouble with the previous version (6?) of the HMC
software that required a java app to get to the management interface -
that was hit & miss regardless of which java client I was running (in
Windows too) - the new web front end in version 7 is much easier to
access.

Regards, Martin
[1] Using tsclient - Terminal Server Client, a GUI front end for RDP,
ICA (Citrix) & VNC. There's a nice Gnome applet for it to add to the
panel that gives quick access to all the connections you have set up -
very handy