01/29/10 How to determine the jobs or objects responsible for generating journal entries in a journal receiver?

You may want to determine what jobs or objects are responsible for generating journal entries in a journal's receiver chain, for example, if you notice that many receivers are being created for the journal.

To determine what jobs or objects are responsible for generating journal entries in a journal's receiver chain, create an outfile from the DSPJRN command and run an SQL query on the outfile:

1. Create the outfile by running one of the following DSPJRN commands:

To specify a receiver range:

DSPJRN JRN(/)
RCVRNG(/ /)
OUTPUT(*OUTFILE)
OUTFILFMT(*TYPE1)
OUTFILE(/)

To specify an entry time range:

DSPJRN JRN(/)
RCVRNG(*CURCHAIN)
FROMTIME( )
TOTIME( )
OUTPUT(*OUTFILE)
OUTFILFMT(*TYPE1)
OUTFILE(/)

Note: The outfiles can grow quite large, so make sure you are not near critical storage on DASD. The outfiles should be close to the same size as the receivers whose entries you are extracting.

2. Run the following SQL statements to find the jobs or objects that are responsible for generating the journal entries. You can cut and paste a statement into a SQL command line on the iSeries after issuing the STRSQL command. If you do not have STRSQL, you can use iSeries Navigator by expanding the system name, expanding the database branch, right-clicking the RDB name (most likely the same name as the system), and selecting Run SQL Scripts. Cut and paste the SQL statement into that window, change the slash (/) to a period (.), and click the Run>All menu command or toolbar button.

To find the jobs that are responsible for generating the journal entries, use this statement:

SELECT jojob, count(*) FROM /
GROUP BY jojob ORDER BY 2 desc

The output from this statement is a list of distinct job names sorted by the number of times each name occurs in the journal's outfile.

To find the objects that are responsible for generating the journal entries, use this statement:

SELECT joobj, count(*) FROM /
GROUP BY joobj ORDER BY 2 desc

The output from this statement is a list of distinct object names sorted by the number of times each name occurs in the journal's outfile.

Note: If the library name and object name are unreadable, the object is most likely an IFS object. In this case, you can determine the object name by performing the following steps:

a. Retrieve the sequence number from the column titled MIN(JOSEQN) and enter it in the following command:

DSPJRN JRN(/)
RCVRNG(*CURCHAIN)
FROMENTLRG()
OUTPUT(*)

b. Apply option 5, "Display Entire Entry"; the object name should be displayed at the top of the screen.

Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2010, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. Vision Solutions develops and sells System i (iSeries) high availability and AIX replication and clustering solutions. IBM, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

01/14/09 How to determine a lock on an IFS object

Many times when enrolling an Integrated File Systems (IFS) object into journaling a message appears stating the attempt was unsuccessful. Typically this outcome occurs because of locks. Unfortunately, there is no WRKOBJLCK command for IFS so an API is needed to display all the jobs that have a lock on an IFS object.

Call the API program: CALL QP0FPTOS PARM(*LSTOBJREF '/ifspath/ifsfile' *FORMAT2)

You will need *SERVICE authority to call this API.

This API will output a detailed spooled file with all the jobs that have a lock(s) on that IFS object and the type of lock that exists.

Note: the third character (from the left) in the API object name is a ‘zero’ and the seventh character is an alpha letter ‘O’.

Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2009, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, i5/OS and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

10/15/08 How to access IFS objects on a remote system.

To access the IFS on a remote system, type the following on a command line: WRKLNK/qfilesvr.400/(system name). For instance, if you are on system "ABC02" and want to access the IFS on system "ABC01", the command would be: WRKLNK/qfilesvr.400/ABC01.
The resulting screen shows the entire IFS file system on system ABC01. From here, you can do anything in the IFS that you can do if you were locally connected to ABC01 (including creating IFS objects, removing IFS objects, etc.).

Next week’s tip will show you how to quickly see what remote systems you can access from a local system, and even how to access a system that you can’t see.


Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, i5/OS and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

09/16/08 How to map an IFS drive from a Windows PC

1. Go to My Computer and click Tools, then select Map Network Drive.
2. Select any drive Letter that in not in use. In the folder section you would put \\systemname\directory you would like access to, for example: \\PROD\TESTING.
3. You will be prompted for your user ID, which is your domain user ID (for example, Vision\AS400 Login ID), and your passoword, which is your i5/OS login password.

You will now have access to folders and files in this portion of the IFS. Going forward, all you need to do is go to My Computer and click on your mapped drive.

Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, i5/OS and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

08/26/08 Removing IFS folders via i5/OS "green" screens

Using the WRKLNK command, navigate to the folder that is above the folder you want to delete and type option 2. Press Enter. From the display that appears, type option 9 (Recursive delete) next to the folder you want to remove and press Enter. The folder and all sub-folders will be removed.

Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, i5/OS and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

5/21/08 Creating symbolic links on the IFS

Anybody familiar with UNIX or Linux operating systems is aware of the usefulness of symbolic links to folders and files. This basically involves creating a link to a file in another location from the original, allowing people to access or edit the original file from another location.

On the System i this can be done by prompting the ADDLNK command. Enter the full IFS path of the object you want to link to in the Object field and the full IFS path of the link you would like to create for it.

Use link type *SYMBOLIC if you need to link to an object on another file system or if you would like the link to remain regardless of whether the object you are linking to still exists, use link type *HARD if you would like to make sure links are only maintained whilst the object exists (if you choose to delete the object at a later date you would need to remove its *HARD links first).

**Editor's note: This post was updated on 07/21/08 to correct an inaccuracy pointed out in the comments posted by a reader.

Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

3/5/08 Remove IFS directory tree in single statement.

(Requires Qshell 5722SS1 Option 30)
Assumption: Directory ABC and all subdirectories need to be removed.

Key the following on an command line: QSH CMD('rm -r /ABC')


Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.