Re: Activation Group and RCLACTGRP

[Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>]

In one sense, it's a bad idea.

If the vendor was smart, they'd be qualifying command calls with QSYS or
better yet one of the the special values *NLVLIBL or *SYSTEM...

Your technique is one IBM doesn't recommend anymore for security reasons.
Sure, it's handy being able to substitute your command for IBMs.  But it's
also the very definition of a computer "Trojan horse".

The more secure way is to use the retrieve command exit point
(QIBM_QCA_RTV_COMMAND) or the change command exit point
(QIBM_QCA_CHG_COMMAND).

OTOH, if the vendor was smart, they wouldn't be using RCLACTGRP *ELIGIBLE.

Personally, I'd be raising holy #$!! with the vendor.

Charles

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:12 PM, <paultherrien@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> +1
>
> I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but it seems like a decent
> solution. I like it.
>
> Paul
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> Hiebert, Chris
> Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2016 6:03 PM
> To: 'midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx'
> Subject: Re: Activation Group and RCLACTGRP
>
> Thanks for everyone's suggestions.
>
> I ended up just writing a new RCLACTGRP command this morning.
> Here is the source:
> http://code.midrange.com/d2db1bea07.html
>
> We've placed it in a library that is above QSYS in our system library list.
>
> The program passes RCLACTGRP commands to QSYS/QWVCCDLA (The CPP for
> RCLACTGRP).
> When the activation group is specified, the new program passes the input
> straight into QSYS/QWVCCDLA.
>
> When *ELIGIBLE is passed, I use the Qwvolagp API to get the job's
> activation
> groups.
> Then I process the list returned and ignore a list of named activation
> groups.
>
> We couldn't just ignore the RCLACTGRP ELIGIBLE call because the vendor's
> product was relying on it to do some cleanup.
> This way their call still works for their own activation groups, but our
> small list of specific activation groups are safe.
>
> Chris Hiebert
> Senior Programmer/Analyst
> Disclaimer: Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
> and do not necessarily represent those of the company.
>
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