Re: how to have AS/400 console at home

Steve,

>Suppose I'm a bad guy working part-time as the janitor at your company. One
>night I'm cleaning up around your office and I hear your modem negotiating
>a connection.  As I stand there, I see you take control of your PC, open a
>connection to the AS/400, sign-on and start doing "stuff".

First off, I'd configure the modem to turn off the speaker.  (If a modem
negotiates a connection in a forest, and the janitor is not nearby, does it
still make a sound?)

Next, I'd configure pcAnywhere to blank the PC display while a connection is
active so nobody can watch what you are doing.  I'd also have it lock out the
local keyboard and mouse while a connection is active.

Thus the janitor would likely not even be aware of your activity.  Even if he
was, he couldn't watch it or interfer with the keyboard while you are connected.

>If I pull the phone cable out of the PC modem on your desk, can I take over
>the "already signed-on" session and have my way with your AS/400??

Good question, but pcA has that base covered too.

pcA knows the difference between a normal session termination and an abnormal
one.  You can define multiple callers which are allowed, each with their own
password, callback (or not) settings, etc.  On an abnormal termination, it can
be configured to only allow back in the previous caller until they have
completed a normal disconnect (or to only accept that caller for the next xxx
minutes than accept anyone).

On an abnormal end of session, pcA can be configured to logoff the user (from
Windows), restart the host computer, or kick in the Windows screen saver (for
which you have presumably set a password).

For that matter, you have the same options after a normal end of session  It can
shut itself down to not accept more calls, logoff the user from Windows, restart
the PC, or kick in the screen saver.

So if the janitor did pull the plug (intentional or not), it can be configured
to disallow access to the PC immediately.  And with the local keyboard/mouse
locked out while you are connected, they can't just popup the the tray icon to
request a normal disconnect, or even popup the task manager.

As already mentioned, if the PC has a 5250 emulation card attached via twinax,
it can run in restricted state.  This is also true of some of the new
connectivity options for a console.  If connecting via CAExpress, you don't have
restricted state but can perform other operations.

I used pcA with callback over regular dialup lines for many years.  It also
supports connections over the Internet now.  There are obvious issues here, but
Symantec has knowledge base articles discussing the various settings for
encryption levels, digital certificates, port options and how to setup a
firewall, yada, yada.

Doug