IBM AS/400 Connector Architecture

Redwood Server uses the JTOpen Java library to connect to AS/400 systems. This library lets you do the following things.

  • Submit CL commands against the AS/400 system.
  • Raise events on files residing on the AS/400 system.
  • Raise events on active job statuses of batch jobs submitted to the AS/400 system.

Terminology

This document uses the older names AS/400 and OS/400 to refer to the hardware and operating system, because these have been in use longest, and because they correspond to older versions of the connector and the IBM Toolbox for Java naming.

  • From 2000-2004 the computer was known as the IBM eServer iSeries (generally abbreviated as iSeries).

  • From 2006-2008, the computer was known as the IBM System i and the operating system was IBM i.

  • Since 2008, the computer has been known as IBM i, part of the IBM Power Systems product line.

on-site-related topic Architecture

In an on-site installation, the connection is initiated by the central RunMyJobs server.

When RunMyJobs connects to an AS/400 system, it initiates a connection to port 8476 (9476 with SSL/TLS) for authentication, then initiates a connection pool to port 8470 (9470 with SSL/TLS) and sends commands over port 8475 (9475 with SSL/TLS).

For SSL/TLS support, the certificate on the server must be trusted by the central RunMyJobs server. If your Certificate Authority signed the certificate, you will have to create X509_TrustedCertificate credentials for the Certificate Authority, as well as any intermediate certificates in the certificate chain.

cloud-related topic Architecture

In an SaaS instance, the Secure Gateway initiates a connection to the RunMyJobs server and to the IBM i system.

Jtools

RunMyJobs includes a variety of command-line tools that can, for example, send an email or issue an FTP command. The AIX/Power variants of these tools can run on the AS/400, provided it has the PASE AIX runtime installed. To use the tools, copy thejtool executable (which contains most of the other tools) from an AIX Platform Agent to the AS/400's UNIX-like IFS (for example: /home/REDWOOD/jtool), then issue the command QSH CMD('/home/REDWOOD/jtool install') to install the tools in the directory where they were stored.

Note: jtool programs cannot make use of -job-context, because this is set up by the Platform Agent job runner. So any programs requiring -job-context will not work on the AS/400.

api-tool.jar

The Java api-tool library lets you run Java code that interacts with RunMyJobs on an AS/400.