MQSeries.net :: View topic - Free FTP over MQSeries

RogerLacroix · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2001 9:31 pm Post subject:

All:

I was thinking of creating a cross platform FTP over MQSeries program. For three years, I tried to convince the product managers of my previous employer to create a stand-alone FTP program for MQSeries. All I ever heard was 'lack of customer interest', 'lack of budget', etcâ€¦

I was looking through the MQ list server archives and I noticed that people regularly ask about doing FTP over MQSeries. So, now that I am an unrestricted free agent (so to speak), I thought I would create one and make the source code available.

About 5 years ago or so, I created an FTP over MQSeries program that involved MVS, AIX and OS/2 (later WinNT). The program had to handle the segmenting of messages that were larger than 4MB. Plus each platform had its own configuration file that became a nightmare to update when a new file was added to the system.

Since, 'message grouping' is available in version 5.x for MQSeries and version 5.x is now available for all major platforms, I will utilize it when I write the code (why re-invent the wheel ). The name of the FTP over MQSeries program will be FTP4MQ (I like it. ).

Goals for this program:
- Support the following major platforms: OS/390 (MVS), AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Linux and WinNT/2000 (Sorry, I know very little about OS/400).
- Only the receiving platform will require the FTP4MQ server to be running.
- FTP4MQ should be fast and easy to use.
- FTP4MQ should be easy to configure.

There are 2 questions that I would like the people of the list server and mqseries.net to express an opinion on:

1) What cross platform language should FTP4MQ be written in? I know C, COBOL, Java, Perl and REXX:
I think we can rule out Perl because I have never seen it on OS/390. While writing FTP4MQ in REXX would be interesting, an interpreted language may not be as fast as the other languages plus I rarely see REXX on UNIX boxes. No offense to COBOL programmers but I'd rather not, plus I rarely see COBOL on UNIX boxes. Therefore, that leaves C or Java for cross platform development. I know that some shops are now installing Java on OS/390 but I would like to know if that is the majority of shops.

2) How would you like the configuration files (nicknames) to be stored?
a) one ini file or sysin member per platform (per queue manager)?
b) Central LDAP for all platforms?
c) Centralized MQSeries program to act as a configuration server (like LDAP but over MQ)

Option (a) is old technology and I would prefer not to do it this way. LDAP is the most logical approach but anyone with a SNA network would not be able to use a LDAP (LDAP requires TCP/IP). So, that leaves option (c), a MQ program that functions similar to a LDAP.

List of features for FTP4MQ:
- Adding or stripping of CR/LF for string data between platforms.
- Support for variable length records.
- Stripping of ANSI characters (MVS thing)
- Support for binary or string data (i.e. FTP commands: BINARY or ASCII)
- Append current file to old file.
- Support nickname for file transmission (i.e. predefined file names and attributes for source and destination of transmission)

Note: I have not decided on the license that will be used for the source code. I.e. GPL, Public Domain, Open Source, Freeware, etcâ€¦ I have got to keep those commercial software vendors at bay.

Let me know what you think.

Later
Rogerâ€¦