iSeries Archives - Seiden Group

Visual Studio Code, RPG and IBM i

June 21, 2021/23 Comments/in IBM i, iSeries, Open Source, RPG, System i /by Liam Barry Allan

Visual Studio Code is an IDE and platform for developers to write backend, progressive web apps, frontend, and everything on the spectrum of development. I have created an extension for VS Code, called Code for IBM i, that allows users to work on and maintain their IBM i code. VS Code is the best IDE for extensibility, which is why I wanted to take on such a task.

While Visual Studio Code was built to work with all languages, in my opinion it didn’t have much support for RPGLE or COBOL on IBM i until this point. We’re streamlining RPGLE development in terms of tools and speed for our users. We want to make developing RPGLE and COBOL easy for everyone in the most efficient way possible.

CIO Summit Features DB2 for i Briefing with IBM’s Scott Forstie

January 22, 2019/0 Comments/in CIO Strategy, db2, IBM i, iSeries, System i /by Alan Seiden

Scott Forstie (left) with Alan Seiden at a previous CIO Summit

In recent years, Db2 for i Business Architect Scott Forstie and his team have rapidly strengthened the IBM i database, improving the sophistication of its SQL query engine, and adding to its galaxy of IBM i services. What’s more, they have several years’ worth of new enhancements in the pipeline.

CIOs and IT Directors can meet Scott at the CIO Summit on March 25, 2019, Charlotte, North Carolina, for an IBM i strategy briefing.

Collaboration at COMMON

April 26, 2015/0 Comments/in db2, IBM i, iSeries, Performance, PHP, PHP toolkit for IBM i, RPG, System i, Web development /by Alan Seiden

The 2015 COMMON annual meeting and expo, now in its first day, is helping speakers and attendees create innovation through IBM i integration: open source, closed source, IBM and vendor solutions. For example, of my six presentations during this conference, two are collaborations:

The Art of Performance Diagnostics, with IBM’s Dawn May, allows us to show, among other topics, how IBM i’s integrated performance tools complement green-screen tools and third-party tools (in this case, Zend Server) to pinpoint and solve performance issues (here, PHP-and DB2-based applications).

PHP Tricks for RPG Developers, a talk jointly created by RPG and SQL expert Birgitta Hauser and me, combines RPG, PHP, and DB2, allowing RPG to achieve graphical (charts and graphs, PDF and Excel files) and internet (json-based web services, flexible email) functionality using native functions.

Conferences such as COMMON serve a need that’s difficult to replicate back at the office—brainstorming and sharing possibilities among interdisciplinary peers, or sitting side-by-side with like-minded colleagues who work for different employers, to try something new. This week, for example, some of us plan to share knowledge on compiling binaries in PASE and to further the potential of open source on IBM i. I’m looking forward to presenting my talks (both joint and solo) and helping to realize new ideas with forward-looking colleagues during the conference.

Birgitta Hauser and Alan Seiden collaborate on their talk at COMMON 2015

Overcome 8-character user profile limit in SSH for IBM i

February 6, 2015/4 Comments/in IBM i, iSeries, PHP, System i /by Alan Seiden

[UPDATE April 2021: The 8-character limitation was removed by default in IBM i 7.4. Earlier releases require the PASE_USRGRP_LIMITED setting. We’ve updated this post to reflect these changes]

In IBM i releases before 7.4, IBM i’s Secure Shell (SSH) rejected connection attempts from user profiles longer than eight (8) characters. When long user profiles are rejected, error messages will vary, but Eclipse-based editors, for example, will show “Failed to connect sshd on “<some ip address>.”

In that case, to permit user profiles longer than 8 characters, you can adjust PASE_USRGRP_LIMITED like so:

IBM i 7.2, 7.3:
- Edit the file /QOpenSys/QIBM/UserData/SC1/OpenSSH/etc/sshd_config
- Add a new line containing
  ibmpaseforienv PASE_USRGRP_LIMITED=N
IBM i 7.4: supports long user profiles in SSH by default.

To apply your changes, end and then start the SSH server, like so:

ENDTCPSVR SERVER(*SSHD)
STRTCPSVR SERVER(*SSHD)

1 2	ENDTCPSVR SERVER(SSHD) STRTCPSVR SERVER(SSHD)

For more details about configuring SSH, see How to Configure and Use SSH on IBM i.

Free webinars sponsored by COMMON Europe (open to all)

January 23, 2015/0 Comments/in Apache, Events, IBM i, iSeries, Performance, PHP, PHP toolkit for IBM i, RPG, System i, Web development /by Alan Seiden

Starting January 27, 2015, I’ll be giving three free Tuesday webinars:

January 27: Strategic Modernization with PHP
February 17: Bring RPG/COBOL business logic to the web with the PHP Toolkit
March 10: Speedy PHP on IBM i

All three one-hour webinars will be held at 14:00 Central European Time (CET). That’s 8 AM Eastern Standard Time (EST). The registration page includes a time zone converter.

Details and to register: http://www.data3.se/?p=5287

Thanks to Torbjörn Appehl of Data3 (COMMON Sweden) for organizing these.

January newsletter

January 9, 2015/0 Comments/in Announcements, IBM i, iSeries, PHP, PHP toolkit for IBM i, System i, Web development /by Alan Seiden

I’ve relaunched my PHP and IBM i newsletter. Here is the January 2015 edition, out today.

To subscribe and receive this free newsletter each month, go here: alanseiden.com/tips.

Comments welcome. Happy 2015–

Alan

Learn to combine RPG+PHP at Toronto user group, Jan. 21, 2015

January 5, 2015/2 Comments/in Events, IBM i, iSeries, PHP, PHP toolkit for IBM i, RPG, System i, Web development /by Alan Seiden

I’ve recorded a special message about my upcoming presentations at the Toronto Users Group for Power Systems evening meeting on January 21, 2015:

In the video, I discuss the two sessions I’ll be presenting:

Bring RPG/COBOL business logic to the web with the PHP Toolkit
PHP Tricks for RPG Developers

Hope you can make it to the Toronto meeting, Jan. 21, 2015, Markham, Ontario. Details: http://tug.ca

Free PHP still exists on IBM i (Zend Server Basic Edition)

December 9, 2014/5 Comments/in IBM i, iSeries, PHP, System i /by Alan Seiden

I’ve been hearing from people confused about Zend Server editions on IBM i. Yes, Community Edition was removed with Zend Server 7/8, but Zend replaced that with the no-charge “Basic” edition. The Basic edition exists only on IBM i. It requires registration but at no cost. Zend Server for IBM i can be downloaded here.

While I often recommend the Professional or Enterprise editions of Zend Server for the value-added tools and for Zend’s professional support, rest assured that free PHP still exists, with the Basic edition.

For more information, here is the current list of Zend Server editions for IBM i.

[Update: See PHP 7 and Free Basic Zend Server Edition for IBM i ]

Zend Framework 2 performance optimization: it works

September 26, 2014/0 Comments/in IBM i, iSeries, Performance, PHP, System i /by Alan Seiden

Zend Framework 2 (ZF2) provides optimization techniques that are often overlooked by published performance tests. One excellent source for such techniques is a presentation by Gary Hockin. I was thrilled when my client and friend King Harrison IV of K3S began testing the effect of these techniques on his ZF2 application running on IBM i.

King’s initial tests produced a 600ms reduction in load time, obtaining respectable performance for his database-heavy application. He plans to update his blog post with further speed improvements as he implements them.

Read King Harrison IV’s blog post about ZF2 performance improvements.

Save your fingers when using PHP-CLI

September 12, 2014/1 Comment/in IBM i, iSeries, PHP, RSI, System i /by Alan Seiden

2021 Update

The instructions in this blog post contain outdated paths and file names.

To learn the modern way to “save your fingers”—plus additional tips for setting up PHP on IBM i—refer to these two articles in our PHP Documentation library.

How to Call PHP from CL or RPG
With the Seiden CommunityPlus+ PHP binary, which is php, not php-cli.
How to Set the PATH to Open Source Packages on IBM i
After you set the path, you can use php myscript.php

In Batch PHP I showed how to call PHP from a command line. For example, with Zend Server 6 or 7 on IBM i, one would launch a PASE command line using the command CALL QP2TERM, or launch QShell using QSH, then type a command such as this:

/usr/local/zendsvr6/bin/php-cli myscript.php

1	/usr/local/zendsvr6/bin/php-cli myscript.php

For those of us who use PHP-CLI often, the above command can be a finger-buster. Let’s shorten the path by creating a symbolic link:

cd /usr/bin
ln -s /usr/local/zendsvr6/bin/php-cli phpc

1 2	cd /usr/bin ln -s /usr/local/zendsvr6/bin/php-cli phpc

I created the symbolic link in /usr/bin, a directory that is likely to be in any user’s path.

Now try the shortened command:

phpc myscript.php

1	phpc myscript.php

To test the shortcut without a PHP script, use the -v switch, which requests version information (‘v’ for version) about your PHP installation.

phpc -v

1

phpc -v

The above command will return version information that starts out something like this:

PHP 5.3.6 (cli) (built: Apr  7 2011 09:37:14)                                
Copyright (c) 1997-2011 The PHP Group                                        
Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2011 Zend Technologies                
    with Zend Extension Manager v5.1, Copyright (c) 2003-2010, by Zend Techno
logies                                                                       
    - with Zend Data Cache v4.0, Copyright (c) 2004-2010, by Zend Technologie
s [loaded] [licensed] [disabled]                                             
    - with Zend Guard Loader v3.3, Copyright (c) 1998-2010, by Zend Technolog
ies [loaded] [licensed] [enabled]                                            
    - with Zend Job Queue v4.0, Copyright (c) 2004-2010, by Zend Technologies
 [loaded] [not licensed] [disabled]

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

PHP 5.3.6 (cli) (built: Apr 7 2011 09:37:14)

logies

s [loaded] [licensed] [disabled]

ies [loaded] [licensed] [enabled]

[loaded] [not licensed] [disabled]

By creating a symbolic link to the PHP-CLI binary, practitioners of PHP can speed their work while saving their fingers.

For more about symbolic links, see my article Link up with QShell.