Shortlist of Open Source Software that I Use

September 3, 2014 Roger Lacroix

I read this article today: Shortlist of open source software used at NASA lab and I thought I should do a quick write up of the open source (and free) software that I use.

I develop/create software under 3 umbrellas: open source, licensed as free and commercial. About half of the software is written in C and the other half is written in Java. The target platforms are AIX, HP-UX (RISC & IA64), IBM i (OS/400), Linux (x86, x86_64, POWER & zSeries), Mac OS X, Solaris (SPARC & x86_64), Windows and z/OS (mainframe).

Open Source Operating Systems that I use:

– Fedora Core 4 x86 64-bit (yes, it is old but some customers are back-leveled)
– Fedora 9 x86 64-bit
– SLES 11 SP2 x86 32-bit
– SLES 11 SP2 x86 64-bit
– SLES 11 on POWER 64-bit
– SLES 10 on z/Series 64-bit

My main development desktop PC runs Windows 7 (64-bit). Yes, I could run a desktop Linux distribution and someday I may but for now, I am very efficient using Windows.

Here is a list of open source (or free) software that I use:

– Eclipse (for Java and C development) is, in my opinion, the best IDE for programmers.
– Microsoft Visual C++ Express 2010
– Microsoft Visual C# Express 2010
– Oracle JDK (many versions)
– Open Object REXX
– Apache HTTP Server
– Inno Setup is an installer for Windows programs.
– LibreOffice (alternative to Microsoft Office)
– Eudora is an email client (alternative to Outlook)
– Firefox is a web browser
– PDFCreator is simple tool but is awesome. It is an application for converting any document into a PDF document.
– Adobe Reader is a PDF viewer
– WinAmp is a great music player
– CDex is a CD ripper
– Irfanview is a graphic viewer
– Kee Pass 2 a tool for managing your passwords
– PuTTY for logging into Unix / Linux servers
– TN5250J for logging into IBM i (OS/400) servers
– x3270 for logging into z/OS (mainframe) servers
– TightVNC for controlling other servers (Windows, Linux or Unix)
– Skype
– FAR is a great file manager
– Visual Diff is a really good program that compares the contents of 2 files
– 7-Zip is a file archiver
– Virtual CloneDrive allows you to mount ISO, BIN & CCD files
– Cobian and RoboCopy are great programs to backup / synchronize your files (BACKUP YOUR FILES!!!)

Even though I have Visual C++ Express IDE installed, I don’t use it. I use Eclipse and makefiles for my C development. I rarely do any GUI development in C, so switching back and forth between Visual C++ Express IDE and Eclipse just slows me down. Hence, I can code much faster if I just stay in Eclipse and do all of my development in it. And yes, I said I use makefiles. Developers get so freaked-out when you say makefiles. But there is nothing wrong with using makefiles. All it means is that the developer needs to understand what components his/her project uses. I have to use makefiles on AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, IBM i (OS/400) and z/OS (JCL actually), so what is wrong with using makefiles on Windows? Absolutely nothing.

I create/update all of the product manuals (open source, licensed as free and commercial) using LibreOffice. I currently have roughly 100 product manuals and I have no issues using LibreOffice. It works really well and I like the 1-click button to create a PDF.

My contribution to the open source community is to create and publish open source projects of my own. I have created 9 top-level open source projects and hundreds of 1-off programs that can be found: C code, COBOL code, Java code, Jython code and Rexx code.

So, if you are not using and/or contributing to the open source community, give it a try, you might like it and learn something new.

Finally, if you are a developer or not, make sure you backup your stuff. Besides, Cobian and RoboCopy, there are lots of open source programs to backup your important files, pictures, code, documents, etc. It doesn’t matter what you use, just use something.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

C, Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), Java, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, Programming, Rexx, Unix, Windows, z/OS Comments Off on Shortlist of Open Source Software that I Use

Mozilla Firefox 32.0 Released

September 2, 2014 Roger Lacroix

Mozilla Firefox has just released Mozilla Firefox v32.0.
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine, which implements most current web standards in addition to several features that are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, Windows Comments Off on Mozilla Firefox 32.0 Released

MQTC v2.0.1.4 Silver Sponsor: NetFlexity

September 2, 2014 Roger Lacroix

Capitalware would like to announce that NetFlexity is a Silver Sponsor of MQ Technical Conference v2.0.1.4 (MQTC).

For more information, please go to: http://www.mqtechconference.com

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education, IBM MQ, MQ Technical Conference Comments Off on MQTC v2.0.1.4 Silver Sponsor: NetFlexity

Bob Zerbe will be Speaking at MQTC

September 2, 2014 Roger Lacroix

Bob Zerbe of BMC will be speaking at Capitalware’s MQ Technical Conference v2.0.1.4 (MQTC). Bob Zerbe will be presenting the following session at MQTC:

  • Using WebSphere Exits to Track Transactions Thru Composite Applications

For more information about MQTC, please go to:
http://www.mqtechconference.com

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education, IBM MQ, MQ Technical Conference Comments Off on Bob Zerbe will be Speaking at MQTC

4 Weeks until MQ Technical Conference

September 2, 2014 Roger Lacroix

MQ Technical Conference v2.0.1.4 (MQTC) is only 4 weeks away – September 29 to October 1, 2014 at Kalahari Resorts in Sandusky, Ohio.

MQTC will offer 85+ sessions that are designed to enhance the skills of IT professionals who are using IBM’s WebSphere MQ on AIX, HP-UX, IBM i (OS/400), Linux, Solaris, Windows and z/OS.

The regular price for the conference is only $399.00 which includes 3 days of MQ sessions, breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks!!! That’s $133 a day to be feed and trained.

    Reasons to attend:

  • 85 technical sessions – 43 unique technical sessions
  • 13 vendor sessions
  • 19 MQ speakers – 8 from IBM
  • MQ Sessions for all major platforms including z/OS
  • Breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks are included
  • Hor d’oeuvres served between 5:30PM and 7:30PM in the Vendor Pavilion
  • Regular price is $399.00 per attendee

For more information, please go to: www.mqtechconference.com

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education, IBM MQ, MQ Technical Conference Comments Off on 4 Weeks until MQ Technical Conference

Beta testers needed for MQ Channel Throttler

September 1, 2014 Roger Lacroix

All,

Capitalware is ready for beta testers for a new solution called: MQ Channel Throttler.

MQ Channel Throttler provides the ability to control/throttle the messages that flow over a channel. It operates with Sender, Receiver, Server, Requestor, Cluster-Sender, Cluster-Receiver, Server Connection and Client Connection channels of the WMQ queue managers.

Companies or users may have a need to restrict the number of messages or bytes flowing over a channel for particular testing scenarios. The user can control the message flow by either byte count or message count. The time value can be in either seconds or minutes. For CLNTCONN/SVRCONN channel, the user can also control the flow by MQPut, MQGet or both.

I plan on building MQ Channel Throttler for AIX, HP-UX (RISC & IA64), Solaris (SPARC & x86_64), Linux (x86, x86_64, POWER & zSeries), Windows and IBM i (OS/400). MQ Channel Throttler will support WMQ v6.0, v7.0, v7.1, v7.5 and v8.0.

There will also be a version for z/OS called: MQ Channel Throttler for z/OS. MQ Channel Throttler for z/OS will support WMQ v6.0, v7.0, v7.1 and v8.0.

Beta testing MQ Channel Throttler and MQ Channel Throttler for z/OS is absolutely free including support (no strings attached).

If you interesting in trying out either products, please send an email to support@capitalware.com to request a trial of MQ Channel Throttler and/or MQ Channel Throttler for z/OS.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Linux, MQ Channel Throttler, Unix, Windows, z/OS Comments Off on Beta testers needed for MQ Channel Throttler

MQVB, MQVE & MQBT JRE Cipher Spec Issue

August 29, 2014 Roger Lacroix

A customer was using MQ Visual Browse (MQVB) and configuring MQVB to use SSL to connect to a remote queue manger (WMQ v7.5.0.2). They said:

I am getting error “Reason Code = 2400”, when specifying TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA as the SSL Cipher Spec Name.

They also said:

We have other MQ Java using SSL working with TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA and TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA using the IBM JRE.

Due to security standards here, there are 3 acceptable cipher specs we are allowed to use. Of the three, only the weakest (TRIPLE_DES_SHA_US) will work with MQ Visual Browse

Cipher Spec Cipher Suite Results
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA SSL_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA Did not work
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA SSL_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA Did not work
TRIPLE_DES_SHA_US SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA Worked

Currently, MQ Visual Browse (MQVB), MQ Visual Edit (MQVE) and MQ Batch Toolkit (MQBT) are build and deployed using Excelsior JET v7.6 (which is based on Oracle’s JRE v1.6.0_41).

My first thought was that the JRE needed the 256-bit JCE policy. I had the customer deploy the 256-bit JCE policy but it did not make any difference.

Next, I did a build and deployment of MQVB using Oracle’s JRE v1.6.0_41 but it resulted in the same issue for the customer.

Since, the customer has IBM’s JRE v1.6.0 installed on their PC, I had them rename the embedded Oracle JRE, so that MQVB would use the installed IBM JRE. This time everything worked.

Therefore, if you are using MQVB, MQVE or MQBT and are having issues trying to use certain MQ SSL Cipher Specs then let us know and we will get it sorted out.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Java, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), MQ Batch Toolkit, MQ Visual Browse, MQ Visual Edit, Security, Unix, Windows, z/OS 2 Comments

MQ Batch Toolkit and Limiting the Messages Retrieved

August 26, 2014 Roger Lacroix

I don’t write about MQ Batch Toolkit (MQBT) very often, so when I got an MQBT support email today, I thought that the question and answer would make a good blog item.

Question:

In MQ Batch Toolkit, what command can be issued, for exporting messages to a file, to retrieve all messages on a queue except in the case where there are more than 1000 messages (and cannot wait more than 30 seconds for the MQGET). i.e. Retrieve up to 1000 messages at any given time without waiting a long period of time for more messages to arrive. The reason for the 1000 message limit, is to limit network traffic in any given period of time.

Current, MQBT Export command used:

mqbt.exe Export -p {profile} -q {queue_name} -f {filename} -c {num_files} -C -D

Answer:

When the ‘-c’ parameter is used in the Export function then MQBT will issue MQGET with unlimited wait. If you use ‘-c 1000’ then MQBT will wait until it receives 1000 messages. MQBT is attempting to accomplish the task of retrieving 1000 messages and it could wait for many minutes or even hours.

The simplest solution is to write a script to first check the queue depth using the MQBT’s QDepth function and then perform the Export function based on whether or not the queue depth is above a particular value

@echo off
setlocal

if [%1]==[] echo Queue Manager Profile was not specified && goto Usage
if [%2]==[] echo Queue Name was not specified && goto Usage
if [%3]==[] echo Output filename was not specified && goto Usage

SET /A MAX_MSG=1000

cd /D C:\Capitalware\MQBT\
mqbt.exe QLIST -p %1 -k %2 -t L -f qdepth.txt -D
FOR /F "tokens=1,2" %%A in (qdepth.txt) DO (

   if '%%A'=='%2' (
      if %%B GTR %MAX_MSG% (
         mqbt.exe Export -p %1 -q %2 -f %3 -c %MAX_MSG% -C -D
      ) else (
         mqbt.exe Export -p %1 -q %2 -f %3 -C -D
      )
   )
)
del qdepth.txt
goto :DONE

:Usage
echo Usage: %0 Profile_Name Queue_Name Ouput_File_Name
goto :DONE

:DONE
endlocal

Breakdown of the script:

The script expects 3 parameters:
– Queue Manager Profile
– Queue Name
– Output file name

Line # 8 is where you set the maximum number of messages to be retrieved.

Line # 11 issues the QDepth function to retrieve the depth of the queue and writes it to a file called ‘qdepth.txt’.

Line # 12 loops over the file ‘qdepth.txt’ and tokenizes the values of each line.

Line # 14 checks that it has the correct queue name.

Line # 15 checks if current queue depth is greater than the maximum queue depth,
– if true then issue Export function with ‘-c’ keyword to limit the number of messages retrieved
– else issue Export function without ‘-c’ keyword to retrieve all of the messages on the queue.

Hopefully, this blog posting will give people ideas on how to extend the use of MQBT.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Java, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), MQ Batch Toolkit, Unix, Windows Comments Off on MQ Batch Toolkit and Limiting the Messages Retrieved

5 Weeks until MQ Technical Conference

August 26, 2014 Roger Lacroix

MQ Technical Conference v2.0.1.4 (MQTC) is only 5 weeks away – September 29 to October 1, 2014 at Kalahari Resorts in Sandusky, Ohio.

MQTC will offer 85+ sessions that are designed to enhance the skills of IT professionals who are using IBM’s WebSphere MQ on AIX, HP-UX, IBM i (OS/400), Linux, Solaris, Windows and z/OS.

The regular price for the conference is only $399.00 which includes 3 days of MQ sessions, breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks!!! That’s $133 a day to be feed and trained.

    Reasons to attend:

  • 85 technical sessions – 44 unique technical sessions
  • 15 vendor sessions
  • 18 MQ speakers – 8 from IBM
  • MQ Sessions for all major platforms including z/OS
  • Breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks are included
  • Hor d’oeuvres served between 5:30PM and 7:30PM in the Vendor Pavilion
  • Regular price is $399.00 per attendee
  • Group pricing (5+) is $299.00 per attendee

For more information, please go to: www.mqtechconference.com

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education, IBM MQ, MQ Technical Conference Comments Off on 5 Weeks until MQ Technical Conference

New: Universal File Mover v1.1.0

August 20, 2014 Roger Lacroix

Capitalware is pleased to announce the release of Universal File Mover v1.1.0. It is a free open source project.

Universal File Mover is more than a simple tool to manage the transfer of files. It allows the user to combine business processes into a workflow. The user combines a series of Action commands to create the UFM Workflow XML file. UFM is supported on AIX, HP-UX, IBM i (OS/400), Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows.

    Changes:

  • Added Actions element to the MQReceive action
  • Added ReplyToQName element to MQ element in the Global section
  • Added ReplyToQName element to MQ element for MQSend action
  • Fixed a bug for Delete and Touch actions when they fail and onErrorFail is N
  • Fixed a bug for MQSend action where it was requiring the file to exist at the start of the UFM Workflow
  • Fixed a bug for Status queue manager name not being tokenized

For more information on Universal File Mover, please go to:
https://www.capitalware.com/ufm_overview.html

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Java, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, Universal File Mover, Unix, Windows 2 Comments