May 2011: support for CICS TS V4.2
Describes updates introduced by the PTF for APAR PM32874:
- Support for CICSĀ® Transaction Server V4.2
- CICS Configuration Manager supports the new resource definition attributes introduced by CICS Transaction Server V4.2.
- Under CICS TS V4.2, CICS Configuration Manager uses the CICS SPI to update CSD-based resource definitions
- Previously, to update resource definitions stored in CSD files,
the CICS Configuration
Manager server
used the CICS-supplied DFHEDAP program, regardless of the release
of CICS Transaction Server under which the CICS Configuration
Manager server was running.
Now, starting from CICS Transaction Server V4.2, the CICS Configuration Manager server uses CICS system programming interface (SPI) commands to update CSD-based resource definitions. (These particular SPI commands were first introduced in CICS Transaction Server V4.1.)
If the CICS Configuration Manager server is running under CICS Transaction Server V4.1, or earlier, the CICS Configuration Manager server uses DFHEDAP, as before.
- File resource definitions: the SOAP API now obscures the file password attribute in some situations
- Previously, when a CICS Configuration
Manager client
requested details of a file resource definition, the SOAP API response
from the CICS Configuration
Manager server
contained the actual value of the file password attribute. When sending
a request to the server to update other attributes of a file resource
definition, the CICS Configuration
Manager ISPF
client included the actual value of the file password, even though
its value had not changed.
To improve security, the server now returns file password attribute values as a string of 8 characters, consisting of the 8 hexadecimal digits of a 4-byte checksum of the file password, with the first digit replaced by an asterisk (for example, *F01E93C). If the file password has not changed, the ISPF client now sends the value as a string of 8 asterisks (********). If the file password specified by a client begins with an asterisk, the server ignores it, and does not attempt to update that attribute in the resource definition.
As before, the CICS Configuration Manager ISPF client displays the file password on-screen as a string of 8 asterisks.