Re: Diagnosing ACS Connection issues

Thanks for your comments Patrick - but I want to clarify one thing.

By "Trouble is that terminal is (to be polite) pretty horrible and not really practical to work with for a group trying to learn the basics of IBM i." I did not mean that 5250 per-se was horrible or that they would have trouble with it. as you say folks with a Unix/Linux background have no issues with a terminal. What i mean was that this specific 5050 implementation is really horrible. For example re-size the screen and it will often duplicate the fields on the RHS. There is no simple mapping of the escape key and other useful functions, no easy way to configure it, etc. etc. The cursor doesn't show up properly and on and on. The OS tn5250 code is what is used but it produces weird results and is just not usable.

A lot of your other suggestions, and those from others, would be so much easier if I was on-site. Maybe I'll have to do a screen share and take control.

Thanks again.

On Jul 17, 2022, at 1:49 PM, Patrik Schindler <poc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello John,

Am 17.07.2022 um 18:58 schrieb Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

I am running a series of remote classes for a client and they are unable to connect via ACS.

I am convinced that it is a firewall issue at their end and they are equally convinced that it is not.

The necessary ports are well documented by IBM. I'd try to telnet to each of the ports in question, and see if the connection opens. This is a basic test method to learn if a TCP port is accessible or not.

Unfortunately, Microsoft and Apple, as well as major Linux distros have decided that installing a telnet client by default is no longer necessary, so you need to take action before.

Here's the scenario.

Fire up ACS and it asks for user Id and pw. Connection appears to be made and green screen appears but never connects.

Interesting.

From the same location users who have installed Code for IBM i can use the 5250 terminal in that to sign on.

Did you try a standalone 5250 emulator for checking? A demo version of Mocha will do. Try with and without TLS, on the appropriate ports, and let us know the outcome.

Trouble is that terminal is (to be polite) pretty horrible and not really practical to work with for a group trying to learn the basics of IBM i.

I expect a (future) programmer to not be a pussy about text terminals. Most of them aren't biased in a similar way in the Linux world, and IBM i *is* a TUI platform at its heart, just like Linux. I don't know why this double-standards thinking exists. When it comes down to "basics" the interesting question is: what are basics, and what is not? I'm sure this is a highly subjective topic. Just saying.

Any suggestions on what tooling I can ask them to run to attempt to identify the blockage?

See above.

Is there another terminal option that would utilize the same connection as Code for IBM i (assumedly SSH) as its communication vehicle?

I don't know Code for I, so I can't tell.

:wq! PoC



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