Re: Call a rpg program from a node script running on an external windows or linux server

Another option I would be fond of since they are on the same LAN would be to do the program call over ODBC (you can register your RPG program as a stored proc or call it directly via ODBC).

And then once the call comes back simply run an SQL query to get the results.

But IWS should work fine as well.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
Web: http://www.richardschoen.net
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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message: 2
date: Wed, 6 May 2026 16:32:24 +0200
from: Luca Giammattei <luca.giammattei@xxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: Call a rpg program from a node script running on an
external windows or linux server

Il 06/05/2026 15:42, Richard Schoen ha scritto:

Is the call coming in over the Internet or over a private network or VPN connection ?

First and foremost that's a consideration for potential exposures.

the two servers (the power one and the webapp one) sits on the same lan

Also how much volume ? (CPU exposure and rate limiting needed to be
considered)

we're expecting few thousands requests per day, the RPGILE part is really optimized to the maximum, and the number of requests does not cause us any particular problems

Since you're using node you can:
-Write your own REST service with:
Node (Can use the node toolkit which uses XMLSERVICE) RPG (ILEAstic or
CGI) Python Java

-Use IWS to expose RPG calls as REST

If on an internal/secure network you could use:
-Mapepire, but your interactions would be using Web Sockets, plus it's
still pretty new. (limited to CL commands and SQL I believe) -Connect
to XMLSERVICE over http, odbc or SSH -Connect directly via ODBC.

If external:
-Are you able to llimit the IP addresses hitting the app ?
-Do you have an external firewall with rate limiting ? (Cloudflare or
something similar)

For you if Node is your thing, creating the service in Node may be the best option.

If each call is truly a few milliseconds, you can probably make the call and just wait for the response sending back the PF outfile results.

I'm in charge for the power server/IBM i/rpg ile part of the game. and I should find a way to allow access to this information to whoever is implementing the nodejs part.

Ultimately, I think the cleanest choice is IWS. Even though I don't like the complications of deploying it.

The Node Toolkit uses XMLSERVICE under the hood, so I'd always have to manage an HTTP server instance. XMLSERVICE has its advantages and disadvantages, too.
Ultimately, I think I can encapsulate the execution of pgm1 more easily with IWS than with other tools and return the response as JSON, avoiding other "weird"
processing on the other end.

Hope this helps.

Sure it does, it's always good to put your ideas in order by writing about them with people who know about them