Lab 1: iSeries User Interfaces

What This Exercise Is About The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with iSeries Navigator and
how to navigate through it. As iSeries Navigator is the primary system
administration interface, it is essential to get acquainted with the basic
functions.

What You Should be Able to Do At the end of the lab, students should be able to:
• Access Navigator from their Windows Desktop
• Define a new connection to the server and verify the connection
settings
• Send messages
• Display messages
• Display message Properties
• Display system operator messages
• Delete messages
• Working with the character-based (traditional) user interface
• Using menus to perform administrative tasks
• Close Navigator

Additional information sources This section lists reference literature and Web resources that contain further
information pertaining the different tasks within this lab exercise.
• Host server
– IBM Redbook: AS/400 Internet Security Scenarios: A Practical
Approach, SG24-5954
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg245954.html?Open
• Messages in iSeries Navigator
– IBM Redbook: Managing OS/400 with Operations Navigator V5R1,
Volume 1: Overview and More, SG24-6226
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246226.html?Open
• Twinax
– IBM Redbook: IBM eServer i5 and iSeries System Handbook, GA19-
5486
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/ga195486.html?Op
en
• Basic system operations
– iSeries Information Center, Systems Management –>Basic system
operations
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r4/index.jsp
Task 1: Starting iSeries As mentioned in the introduction chapter to iSeries Access, iSeries
Navigator Navigator is the graphical tool to administer and operate an iSeries server.
It was enhanced over the last couple of years to also provide functions to
manage integrated Windows servers and logical partitions (not on i5
servers). In addition, it also offers a system management function called
Management Central. Even though iSeries Navigator is a very function-rich
tool, it should be noted that many administrators and programmers still
prefer the character-based interface (more about the character-based
interface later in this lab unit).
iSeries Navigator can be installed from CD or directly from the i5/OS
integrated file system via a mapped network drive. The product source is
located within i5/OS in the following IFS directory:
/QIBM/ProdData/Access/Windows/Install/Image
A default file share named QIBM is shipped with the operating system and
can be used to install iSeries Access for Windows on a PC.
iSeries Navigator is one of the options included in iSeries Access for
Windows. When installing iSeries Access, iSeries Navigator is automatically
installed with the base support and the Basic Operations option. For this
lab, iSeries Navigator was already installed with several options.
The default installation path on a PC is \Program Files\IBM\Client
Access.
Perform the following steps to start iSeries Navigator on your workstation:

ˆ 1. Via the Windows Start menu or through the iSeries Navigator

desktop icon, start iSeries Navigator.

Task 2: Adding a new When iSeries Navigator is launched for the very first time for a certain
connection Windows user account, a wizard starts that allows you to define a new
connection to an iSeries server. In this lab it is assumed that you started
iSeries Navigator the first time. In addition, an online help wizard is
displayed. You can remove the checkmark on the online help window to
prevent the window from popping up every time iSeries Navigator is started.
Perform the following steps to add a new connection:

ˆ 1. After iSeries Navigator is started the first time and no connection

exists, a window is shown asking whether you want to create a
connection at this time. Select Yes from the popup window.

ˆ 2. The Add Connection page is displayed as shown in the figure

below:

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 Figure: iSeries Navigator – Add Connection page

ˆ 3. Complete the wizard with the following data until you reach the last
page of the wizard. This page shows the Finish button.
Add Connection page
Server: <M820_P2>
Description: i5/OS connection to <M820_P2>
Environment: leave My Connections
iSeries Navigator allows you to maintain one
or more environments. You can one or more
server connections to an environment. In
case, you need to manage various servers in
different locations, you could create an
environment for each location and add the all
servers/partitions of a given location to the
corresponding environment.

Signon Information page (more about the possible signon

information later in this lab)
User ID option Select Use default user ID, prompt as
needed
User name Enter your personal user ID that you received
when you registered for an i5/OS user
account.

ˆ 4. On the Verify Connection page, click the Verify Connection

button. Do not click Finish at this time. The Verify Connection option
checks that iSeries Navigator can connect to all required network
services on the server <M820_P2>. You will see that iSeries
Navigator uses various services to run all functions on an iSeries
server. In i5/OS, the services iSeries Navigator use are called Host
Servers.
The connection verification should complete successfully as shown
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 in the following figure.

Figure: Verify iSeries Connection page

The purpose of the different services and IP ports as well as a

description can be found in the following IBM Redbook:
AS/400 Internet Security Scenarios: A Practical Approach, SG24-
5954

ˆ 5. Complete the wizard. You can see your new connection added to
the iSeries Navigator window. Expand the system connection
<M820_P2>.

ˆ 6. Via the connection context menu, open the connection properties

and verify the settings on the Connection tab. You can see the user
settings you selected in the wizard.

Study Time Use the iSeries Navigator online help and read about the various signon
options that are available for authentication.

ˆ 7. Close the connection properties.

Task 3: Exploring Basic iSeries Navigator is grouped into several functional components. By default,
Operations a user will only see the Basic Operations option displayed when opening a
system connection. To be able to work, for example, with users and group,
more iSeries Navigator options have to be installed. In this lab environment,
all options have been installed. Further, an administrator can also control
which user can see what option and what specific authority that user has, by
setting permissions via iSeries Navigator Application Administration.
In this lab task, you will familiarize yourself with iSeries Navigator and the
way it works. You will use some basic function to explore some
administration tasks. Even though the tasks seem quite simple, they are the
foundation work for all upcoming lab exercises that use iSeries Navigator.

ˆ 1. If not already done, start iSeries Navigator, expand system

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 <M820_P2> and sign on with your personal user profile.

Note: The very first time after you received your personal user profile,
iSeries Navigator shows you a message that your password has expired.
Follow the displayed options to change your password at this time and then
continue with the lab.

ˆ 2. Expand Basic Operations as shown below.

Figure: iSeries Navigator – Basic Operations

ˆ 3. From the Messages context menu, select Send Message... to

open the corresponding dialog. As you can see, most functions
associated with a certain menu item can be reached via a context
menu. The context menu can be opened by right-clicking on the
menu item.

Background Information Messages in i5/OS can be send to individual users or workstations.

Messages are stored in objects called Message Queues. There are
message queues for each user and every defined workstation device. I
guess it is quite clear that a user represents a user profile in i5/OS. So, let
us explore workstations a little bit further. Like in a Unix or Linux
environment, where users can access a character-based display device
through TTY devices, i5/OS also uses special devices to allow access to
the system. These devices are called workstation devices. Besides display
workstation devices, other devices, such as printers, also have message
queues.
If you send, for example, a message to a user message queue, the user
can access this message from any available system interface, such as a
character-based interface, iSeries Navigator, or user-written programs that
use i5/OS-specific APIs or Java Toolbox classes. That means, the user can
access his messages from any display devices or program he is signed on.
Messages for a specific workstations can typically only be displayed from
the target workstation. Some exceptions exist, however, they will be
discussed in upcoming lab units.

ˆ 4. This time you will send a message to your own user. If you can’t
remember your user name, just use the Browse function to list all

©International Business Machines, 2006 Module 2 5

 defined users on the system. Even though you can see all users on
a system, it does not necessarily mean that you can also send a
message to anybody on the system. Every message queue is
protected via access control. A very fine grained object authority
system exists in i5/OS that can even be set up so that a user can
send a message to a queue, but can’t display the message or send
and display a message, but can’t delete a message.
Enter or select your personal user name and enter a message text.
Click the option to send the message and then close the dialog
window.

ˆ 5. Now display the message you just sent in iSeries Navigator. You will
notice that the right pane does not contain your new message. You
need to use the Refresh option to read all new messages from the
Series server.

Figure 4 iSeries Navigator – Messages

Study Time Familiarize yourself with the other options on the Send Message window
and the details section of a displayed message.

ˆ 6. Send another message to the system operator. The system

operator plays a special role on the system and therefore can be
directly selected from the user field in the send message window.

ˆ 7. Okay, you sent a message to the operator queue, but how do you
display messages for the system operator. You are not always
signed on as the system operator profile, which is QSYSOPR.
There are several ways for displaying system operator messages.
You will get a brief description of both approaches and then you will
try to perform both.
i. Customize the properties of the Messages section under Basic
Operations. There is a way to include the system operator
message queue in the list of messages that are shown on the
right pane of the iSeries Navigator window.
ii. You can use the Users and Groups section of iSeries Navigator
and display messages for a specific user. Remember that
messages are sent to message queues. These message queues

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 are objects that, in this case, belong to users.
Could you successfully display the system operator messages via
both ways?
Probably not, at least for the second approach. The reason why
you were able to display operator messages using the first
approach and not the second approach is that with the first way,
you are including the message queue object in the list of message
queue objects to be displayed. Via the second approach you need
to have access to the system operator user profile (QSYSOPR) in
order to display the message queue user object. Since your
current user does not have this authority, you cannot access the
message queue using the Users and Groups path in iSeries
Navigator. However, you can try the second way with your own
user profile.

Background Information The system operator queue is the most important message queue within
i5/OS. It carries the name of the system operator profile QSYSOPR. Every
single alert, problem, system job and networking information are logged into
this queue. It the place to start with troubleshooting on the system. For
example, you can see in the queue when any by whom an IP interface was
taken down. Of course, many of these events are also logged in the
system-wide history log. Sometimes it is necessary or desirable to filter out
critical system and security messages. This can be achieved by creating
another message queue with the special name QSYSMSG. If this message
queue exists in the system library QSYS, the operating system
automatically logs critical message into this message queue.

ˆ 8. In the last step of this lab task, use the iSeries Navigator interface
to delete all messages in your user’s message queue.

Task 4: Using the traditional Traditionally, applications were always run through a character-based user
character-based interface interface. Different line protocols exist for these kinds of interfaces. On the
iSeries server, the protocol is a 5250 data stream protocol. This protocol
was supported by many display units that were connected via a Twinax
cabling topology. The 5250 data stream is still heavily used. However, in
todays environments PC workstations running a 5250 emulation program
provide this kind of interface. It should be noted that the 5250 protocol and
commands offer a far more enhanced and comfortable way of displaying
characters than typical VT based emulation programs or terminals.
For many iSeries administrators, the character-based 5250 interface is still
their favorite interface to control the system. You can compare this to typical
Unix or Linux administrators. Even though they do have a graphical
interface available, they find their way around the system much faster via a
command shell interface.
In this lab section, you will explore the 5250 terminal emulation interface.
You can start and create 5250 session profiles in several ways:
• Via the Windows Start menu under IBM iSeries Access for Windows –>
Emulator –> Start or configure session
• Via the Windows desktop context menu under New->iSeries Desktop
Icon
• Through the connection context menu in iSeries Navigator
Since you started this lab unit with iSeries Navigator, the following steps
also use this interface to start a 5250 emulation session.

ˆ 1. If not already done so, start iSeries Navigator and sign on with
your personal user profile to <M820_P2>. In case, you are still
logged into the same Windows session, you will notice that you will
©International Business Machines, 2006 Module 2 7
 not be prompted to enter a password when starting iSeries
Navigator again and open a connection. The reason for this is that
the password is cached in Windows.

ˆ 2. Open the context menu for your connection to <M820_P2>.

Figure: iSeries Navigator – Connection context menu

ˆ 3. Select the option to start a display emulator session. A Configure

PC5250 window is displayed.

ˆ 4. Select the following properties for the new session:

System name: <M820_P2>
Size: 27 x 132
This display size is very useful when displaying
reports and spool output on the system. It displays
up to 132 columns rather than just 80.
Auto-reconnect: Check this box. It causes the emulation session to
automatically reestablish a connection when a
session ended or in case of a network problem.
Host code-page: 037 United States
To display all country-specific characters correctly,
the session profile host code page setting has to
match the installed i5/OS language. In this case,
the iSeries has US English installed. 037 is the
EBCDIC code page for US English.

Study Time Use the PC5250 emulator online help to understand what the remaining
configuration options are used for.

ˆ 5. Click OK to start the session. Before you are going to sign on to the
system, select the Edit –> Preferences menu of the emulator
window. Familiarize yourself with the various options, including but
not limited to keyboard mapping and appearance. Try to find the
option to display some user-defined text in the window title bar.
Enter the system name you are connected to as a text. This is very
useful when you have active sessions to multiple systems or
partitions. That way, you can easily recognize the correct session in
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 the Windows active task bar.

ˆ 6. After you finished your emulator session configuration, save your

profile. Remember the location where you saved the profile for later
use.

ˆ 7. Sign on to the system with your personal user profile and continue
with the next lab task.

Task 5: Navigating through You already worked your way through some basic administration and
i5/OS via menu options navigation tasks in iSeries Navigator. The character-based or 5250
interface, offers you basically two ways to perform tasks on the system.
• Using the i5/OS provided menus and their options
• Using the i5/OS command language
In the following section you will learn how menus are built and how they are
used.
When you signed on to the system, by default, you will be presented with
the i5/OS Main Menu (currently still referred to as the OS/400 Main Menu).
The options you are seeing depend on your user profile’s user class. For
users with higher privileges you will see all options (don’t worry you will
eventually get more authorities later on). i5/OS also provides the option to
define other start menus or start programs via user profile parameter. We
will cover those in lab module 3.
You will start by sending a message via menu options in the 5250 session;
the equivalent to what you did with iSeries Navigator.

ˆ 1. First, let us examine the operating system menu structure. A menu

consists of a menu name in the top-left corner of the window
followed by a menu title in the center. System menus also show the
system name on the top-right corner. The middle section contains
menu option numbers and their corresponding descriptions. Options
or commands can be entered at the command line. The bottom
section shows the context-related function keys. Note that the F1
(help) function key is always available. Therefore it is not explicitly
listed.

©International Business Machines, 2006 Module 2 9

 Figure: i5/OS Main Menu

ˆ 2. Sending messages is a typical user task. Select option 1 to enter

the User tasks menu. The User Tasks menu contains the option to
send a message. This time, the way to get to the User Tasks menu
was just one option away from the i5/OS Main Menu. However,
sometimes the function you are trying to reach is several levels
down the path. As an alternative to navigating through several sub-
menus, you can also enter a command to directly go to a certain
menu. This requires, though, that you know the menu name of the
target menu. In this case, the menu name of the User Tasks menu
is USER. To go to the USER menu, you can also enter the following
command on the command line:
GO USER

ˆ 3. Select the option to send a message and send a message to the

system operator queue. Just like with the iSeries Navigator
interface, the 5250 interface also provides a special value for the
operator (*SYSOPR). In the send message command window, you
also see behind the command description the i5/OS command
name in parenthesis. This command could also be entered directly
on the command line.

ˆ 4. You just sent a message to the operator message queue. However,

for a normal user, you do not have a menu option to display the
operator messages. There are two ways to display operator
messages:
i. Using the i5/OS Command Language (CL) command
ii. Using the System Request menu.

Background Information The System Request menu is, unless it is restricted within user applications,
always available to a user via a special key combination. On regular PC
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 keyboards you can open the System Request menu by pressing Shift-Esc.
This shows a line at the bottom of the 5250 window. You can now just press
the Enter key to get to the System Request menu as shown in Figure or
you can directly enter the System Request menu option on the entry line at
the bottom of the window.

Figure: System Request menu

ˆ 5. Display the system operator messages. All operator messages are

displayed. With your current user profile and system settings, you
should see the messages divided into messages that need a reply
or not. You should also see the message you sent earlier. You are
not authorized to delete operator messages.

ˆ 6. Display details of a message. If do not know what a certain value is

about, you can always use the F1 key to get additional help-

ˆ 7. Press the F3 key to exit the Display Messages window.

©International Business Machines, 2006 Module 2 11