Re: Identifying a printer session attached to an interactive session in Client Access (iSeries Access)

Dear Mike and Mark,

In the late 1990's, I participated in the IETF working
group that created the TN5250E specification. The
participation in the work group allowed me to
establish some contacts with developers at IBM who are
responsible for the Telnet server implementation in
i5/OS and OS/400, which I have maintained to this day.


I was wondering whether what you wanted to accomplish
was possible so I forwarded your e-mail to Paul Rieth
at IBM:

His suggestion on one way to accomplish the task is
outlined below in the section marked with the >
character.

HTH

Best Regards,

/Paul

Sorry this response took so long, almost fell

through 

the cracks. I don't know about a single API, but I 
think I can do it in 2. Basically using the Netstat 
API's, you could list all connections associated 
with a particular IP address (QtocLstNetCnn API), 
then use the results of that to net out the
associated jobs (QtocRtvNetCnnDta API). This second 
API returns way more information than you're 
interested in, and it will return associated telnet
server jobs (qtvdevice and qtvtelnet if SSL, 
so your program would need to ignore those) as well 
as the interactive job. It would  take a little bit
of programming, but definitely do-able. There could 
be easier ways as well, but this should work. 

I also looked at the Retrieve Device Description API
which can return the IP address associated with a 
device, but the IP address is not a search key 
so there's no easy way to use it without
iterating through every device on the system.

By the way, the Telnet server does support an 
associated printer negotiation/parm (its in our 
latest RFC), not sure if that would help in this 
case as that would cause all printed output to 
automatically (no wrksplf, chgsplfa operations) 
go to their bar code printer. Maybe you could
manage it by creating the spool files held and 
only releasing what you want printed. Newer 
versions of PCOMM support it, but I don't think 
Client Access does yet.

date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:49:21 -0400
from: "Mike Cunningham" <MCUNNING@xxxxxxx>
subject: Re: Identifying a printer session 
attached to an interactive session in 
Client Access (iSeries Access)

I would like to see IBM give us a way (API 
or command) to look at all devices connected 
from an IP address. Then we could look at the IP
address of the display session and use the API 
to get any other active session from that same 
IP address. Naming issues would be resolved as
they could have called BobDisplay and TomPrinter 
and still get associated by IP.

date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 12:24:00 -0400
from: "Mark S. Waterbury"

<mark.s.waterbury@xxxxxxx>

subject: Identifying a printer session attached 
to an interactive session in ClientAccess 
(iSeries Access)

Hello, all:

Our users start a display emulation "Session A" 
in ClientAccess, and (on the same PC) start 
printer emulation "Session B."

The printer emulation (Session B) uses a local 
printer (a little thermal bar code printer) 
attached to the COM1 serial port on their PC.

In "Session B," we specify a workstation ID, 
and this creates an output queue on OS/400 
with the same name.

When we CHGSPLFA to the correct OUTQ(name) 
for a spooled file, the spooled file prints 
on this locally attached printer.

Now when users run a program in "Session A," 
how can the program retrieve the name of that 
OS/400 output queue name that is associated 
with "Session B" on the same PC?

We want to change an attention-key handling 
program so that, when they hit the ATTN key, 
a little bar code sticker prints immediately 
at their own desk, without the hassle of 
WRKSPLF or CHGSPLFA.

We don't want the users to be aware of the 
OS/400 output queue name of the little bar 
code printer on their desk or have to 
"mess with" WRKSPLF or CHGSPLFA.

Can anyone suggest what API(s) we might use 
to accomplish this?

Thanks.

Paul Tykodi
Principal Consultant
TCS - Tykodi Consulting Services LLC

Tel/Fax: 603-343-1820
Mobile:  603-866-0712
E-mail:  ptykodi@xxxxxxxxx
WWW:     http://www.tykodi.com

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