RE: Getting a little creepy

Joe,

It's a way to talk to the mothership. I just noticed recently that our i5 had 
been downloading PTFs on it's own.

Friendly/benign? Good question. IMO, I kind of like the part where it will 
phone home to report hardware problems, but I definitely don't want the thing 
downloading PTFs on itself. (then the next time I apply something from *SERVICE 
I get a bunch of crap I hadn't bargained for).

With some help from Bryan Dietz, I think I've got that auto-PTF thing turned 
off. After you GO SERVICE and take Opt 1, make sure you hit F10 to see all the 
options.

As for the QRETSVRSEC, I remember reading about that a while back and I think 
it was in the Memo to Users a few releases back. 

I didn't have to do that license thing, by the way. My OS came pre-loaded from 
IBM, so I am assuming that is why.

-Marty

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date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 09:27:55 -0600
from: "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Getting a little creepy

This morning I got a message "Service Agent program QS9USRMSG
encountered an error - action required." along with "Service Agent Auto
PTF function has started."  This sounded sort of important, so I looked
at the messages in detail and they said that I needed to "GO SERVICE".
Well, in order to GO SERVICE, you have to jump through some hoops.  In
short, I had to key in what is in effect registration information like
you would see for any $29 shareware product, and then I had to set a
system value (QRETSVRSEC) to '1'.  This value "determines whether the
security data needed by a server to authenticate a user on a target
system through client-server interfaces can be retained on the host
system."

If I had to guess, this SOUNDS like it allows my i5 to cache passwords
for later unattended use.

Anybody know what's going on here?  Is the service agent a way for my
machine to talk to the mothership?  Is it benign?  Friendly?  The IBM
representative says it's no big deal, but I am just a little leery when
something asks me to change a security parameter.

Joe