Re: 7.6 and SDA ? -- MIDRANGE-L

I can't recall when IBM came up with this silly notion that /tmp should
have some weird attributes, like *RSTDRNMUNL. Caused absolutely holy heck
with emailing with IBM utilities. And if you changed that attribute IBM
just changed it at every IPL. The user community did get them to stop that.
This is some of the kind of stuff I'm talking about.
If you don't know that *RSTDRNMUNL does, prompt CHGATR. Basically if you
had a program running under your user id and it created something in /tmp,
then something running under one of those qtm* user profiles could not
delete it. It had NOTHING to do with security or special authorities.
Think of it like aix or linux trying a perversion of QTEMP and everyone
having their own copy, but totally different. :-)

On Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 1:17 PM Rob Berendt <robertowenberendt@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I do not "know" of anything. However, just for FUD's sake, let's say IBM
decides that anything that addresses a certain part of memory
(yadda,yadda,etc, or some such thing) is a security risk and locks that
down. Much like level 50 security. Now let's say that some of these
commands, that are unsupported, are affected. You will have little to no
recourse.

I guess you can always use them until you can't. But if that day comes,
you'd better be prepared to do without or have a plan B ready.

On Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 1:08 PM <smith5646midrange@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

As an added question...

Does anyone know if IBM has ever removed access to an unsupported command
mid release? For example, removing access to CMPPFM now even though 7.6
has been out for almost a year or are we safe at least until 7.7 or
greater? I'm just trying to keep track so I know how hard to push my
clients to find alternatives to existing but future going away commands.

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Vern Hamberg via MIDRANGE-L
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2026 12:54 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: 7.6 and SDA ?

The Memo to Users says that the commands are still available in 7.6,
without the menu options 54 and 55 for CPMPFM and MRGSRC, things I have
used a lot - I especially like how MRGSRC worked, as a 3-stage merge that
let me preview results.

Support will be limited to security-related fixes - non-security-related
stuff will not change. That's not a problem for me, the operation of these
commands has been fine for a really long time.

You can always add a user-defined option that runs these commands.

*Regards*

*Vern Hamberg*

IBM Champion 2025 <cid:part1.0i2m6fxu.OnP7bJ32@centurylink.net> CAAC
(COMMON Americas Advisory Council) IBM Influencer 2023

On 2/16/2026 10:51 AM, smith5646midrange@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Am I reading that page correctly that CMPPFM is no longer going to be

supported in 7.6 which means at some point it will drop off of the face of
the disk? Is there another command / utility that should be used to
compare source members that I am unaware of? I use CMPPFM on occasion but
it is always a minor comparison and not a deep dive so I have never had to
look for a better alternative.

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L<midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of

Rob Berendt

Sent: Monday, February 16, 2026 9:23 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: 7.6 and SDA ?

According to the Upgrade Planning site at
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7183543 SDA is not part of the

supported products on IBM i 7.6. PDM is not being removed.

For a detailed list of what is, and what isn't, being removed read the
following:

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.6.0?topic=rdsi5w-commands-from-rational-development-studio-i-5770-wds-option-21-application-development-toolset

Now, if the question is "Is there some hack to stop the upgrade from

removing (SDA for example)?" then I do not know of one, nor would I
recommend using one if there was. Why? Well, because IBM has given you
notice that it's not supported and will be removed.

Just to add FUD (Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt) what's to stop IBM from having

a new PTF every cume which does a search and destroy on some of these
options? Or, instead of removing them, uses some new technique which
causes each of them to generate some weird program space violation message
or some such thing? Then you're stopped hard without further notice. IOW,
adapt in a planned controlled environment vs "crap, they meant it!".

On Sun, Feb 15, 2026 at 6:11 AM Gad Miron<gadmiron@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello guys

I was recently told by an IBM CE that when upgrading 7.5 to 7.6 you
can opt to not remove SDA, PDM etc. so you end up with a 7.6 system
with operational SDA, PDM.

Can anyone confirm this is true?

TIA
Gad
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