Re: Counting Users

Hi Ron,

More bad news. After reading Tom's email, it occurred to me my little LAN
uses a LinkSys router as a gateway, which means it does NAT (Network Address
Translation) -- all our local addresses are translated to a single external
ip address, so that anyone of the 6-8 computers attached would appear as a
single ip address when telnetting to an AS/400.

Someone wanting to get around your method could set this up (the LinkSys
router is under $200) and have 250 users looking like one.

Why did you decide to not use the IBM licensing api's? (Ooops -- I just
realized that might sound like humor, but it's a serious question).

hth,
Peter Dow
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 425-0194 voice
909 425-0196 fax


From: "ron hawkins" <hwarangron@home.com>
> Bummer! I'll have to try this when I get to work on Monday. Just to be
sure
> I understand.. a second user who signs onto another device and follows the
> same steps will get the same TCPIP address as the first user who signed on
> and followed those steps. Even though they're sitting at different
> terminals? This is not what I wanted to hear.

> From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
> Because it's generally possible to telnet from a system back into itself,
I
> can take advantage of the following (and I suspect many customers would
once
> it's understood that they're being charged otherwise):
>
> 1. Signon at system MyAS400 to a dumb terminal.
> 2. Start a second session and issue "telnet MyAS400".
> 3. Once that second session shows the signon panel after telnetting,
signon
> at MyAS400 a second time (actually a third time altogether but the second
> time within that session window; V5R1 TN5250e could even make this last
> signon invisible to the user).
>
> That second session will have made two separate jobs, one job is now
running
> against a virtual terminal and showing a TCP/IP address for MyAS400
because
> that's where the telnet command was run. No matter if this sequence is
done
> beginning with a dumb terminal or through a ClientAccess session or
> whatever, every resulting job will show the same TCP/IP address.
>
> Each telnet session could signon using the same "generic" profile, so
every
> connection using your app would have the same IP-address/userid
combination
> and your license scheme would count "1" user license in total. (Unless
> you're really counting signed-on users altogether rather than only those
> using your product???)
>
> All that is required is any system that has telnet server and client.
Could
> be the AS/400 to itself (possibly multi-homed even?), one AS/400 to
another,
> an NT server running a telnet service, whatever. Every device accessed in
> this way will show the same, single IP address.



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