Author Topic: Secure telnet to AS400  (Read 7023 times)

Neil Waldhauer

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Secure telnet to AS400
« on: February 05, 2017, 03:50:07 pm »
OS/2 provides secure telnet to AS400, but setting it up is a little hard. I'm finding directions for the i-Series, but some of the rest isn't obvious. Like a lot of things in the era, Java 1.1 seems to be a requirement.

\IBMGSK40 is required, too. (Ever wondered what it was for?)

Mensys has moved a critical file from \IBMGSK40 to \ecs\bin\GSK4IKM.CMD, so that needs to be moved back.

Has anyone done it? I'm not really familiar with AS400.
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ak120

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Re: Secure telnet to AS400
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2017, 12:52:57 am »
I'm not sure what you mean by "secure telnet to AS400". Of course it's possible to make a telnet connection to an AS/400 as long it offers this kind of service. But usually an 5250 session is more common interfacing with OS/400 also via IP. Everything is included with OS/2 Warp Version 4 component Personal Communications Lite, but some updates should be done for correct function. This is also true when using the full product of Personal Communications 4.x.

Fixes for PersComm/2 are still available: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/pcom/fixes/

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: Secure telnet to AS400
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2017, 01:45:35 am »
Thanks, I have the last rollup of Personal Communications. TN5250 has a secure setting in the communications That offers SSL. AS400 docs call this telnet, and don't admit to the plain kind of telnet most of us are familiar with. I'll bet they are both actually subsets of the telnet standard.

These are the instructions I found, so I know I'm on more or less the right track.

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_73/rzaiw/rzaiwscenariossl.htm

I wonder how secure SSL from nearly 20 years ago would be?

Here are some screen shots of communications setup:

« Last Edit: February 06, 2017, 01:47:42 am by Neil Waldhauer »
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Dave Yeo

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Re: Secure telnet to AS400
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2017, 02:15:38 am »
I wonder how secure SSL from nearly 20 years ago would be?


Might take an hour to crack on a fast machine. It's copyright RSA and they had some insecure encryption IIRC.
Have you considered simple SSH? Or perhaps security isn't a big worry as the RSA should be enough to keep most everyone out.

ak120

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Re: Secure telnet to AS400
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2017, 08:02:29 am »
Thanks, I have the last rollup of Personal Communications. TN5250 has a secure setting in the communications That offers SSL. AS400 docs call this telnet, and don't admit to the plain kind of telnet most of us are familiar with. I'll bet they are both actually subsets of the telnet standard.
In RFC 1205 it was called 5250 Telnet Interface.

Quote
These are the instructions I found, so I know I'm on more or less the right track.

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_73/rzaiw/rzaiwscenariossl.htm

I don't know about your certifcates and key management infrastructure. This one has more details:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/network/commserver/windows/library/csnag17.htm

PCOMM 4.3 is from 2000, so I hope that at least CSD IP22414 + fixes were applied.