This is part 4 in iSeries expert Andrew Borts' tutorial on how to set up iSeries Access for Web. As IT service is moving to browser-based interfaces, System i administrators need to become familiar with their platform's capabilities. You can read part 3, "Managing ASF Tomcat settings" or go to the table of contents.
At this time, minimize the browser window. Do NOT close it, as you'll need it shortly.
iSeries Access for Web provides commands to configure the product. Use the following CL command to configure by typing the following command (QIWA2 is the iSeries Access Web library used by OS/400):
QIWA2/CFGACCWEB2 APPSVRTYPE(*ASFTOMCAT) TCSVRNAME(iwatomcat) TCHOMEDIR('/ASFTomcat/iwatomcat')TCUSRPRF(QTMHHTTP)
While the command is running, a QSHELL window will appear and display the following:
Configuring iSeries Access for Web.
Preparing to perform the configuration changes.
Calling WebSphere to perform the configuration changes.
iSeries Access for Web command has completed.
The WebSphere instance application server must be stopped and then started to enable the configuration changes.
At this time, start the Tomcat server by clicking the green play button at the top of the screen. The status should change from "Stopped" to "Running." Hit the refresh button to get the current status.
Then start the HTTP Web server by clicking the green play button at the top of the screen.
After this, you can open the following pages to view iSeries Access for Web:
http://-server ip address-:2016/webaccess/iWAHome
or
http://-server ip address-:2016/webaccess/iWAMain
You can customize these pages by modifying files located in the following directory:
\QIBM\ProdData\Access\Web2\html\en\
Only do this if you understand HTML:
Look for "homepage.html" to change the information displayed on the home page.
Look for "homeinfo.html" to change the information about your locale.
Look for "homeweather.html" to change the information about your weather.
Look for "homenews.html" to change the information about your news.
Look for "homephone.html" to change the information to look up telephone numbers.
What can you do?
- Check print jobs
- Look at messages
- Inspect jobs
- Start 5250 sessions (See screen shot!)
You can print PDF files natively from the OS/400 (I didn't know that until I saw the option in iSeries Navigator).
So, this gets your iSeries users onto the Web. Remember, ISeries access for Web requires 470 megs of storage on the system, so watch your disk space.
We'll talk more about teaching this old dog some new Web tricks in the next few months as we address FTP PTF techniques, PHP, MySQL, and other new technologies. Until then, get busy getting lazy!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Andrew Borts is webmaster at United Auto Insurance Group in North Miami, Fla. He is a frequent speaker at COMMON and is past president of The Southern National Users Group, an iSeries-AS/400 user group based in Deerfield Beach, Fla.
