Configuring your application

After you install HATS LE, you can configure your HATS LE application from a supported browser on the local machine or on any other machine. The application server must be running when you configure your HATS LE application. Review the information in this chapter to see what information you need to supply to configure your HATS LE application. To start the HATS LE Configuration wizard, enter the following URL in your Web browser:

http://<servername>/HATSLE/config

where <servername> is the name of the server machine where you installed HATS LE. You must log in with a user name, which must have *SECADM authority, and password. You can specify the language in which you wish to use the Configuration wizard. As you use the wizard, click Help on any panel for more information.

The Configuration wizard can also be launched through the Administrative Console by selecting the Configure menu item on the left-hand side.

The Welcome page

When you log in to the Configuration wizard, you will see the welcome page. This page shows the status of your HATS LE application. If you have already configured and activated this application, there could be users connected to the application. These users will not be affected while you are reconfiguring your application. If users are connected to your HATS LE application when you click Finish to save your changes, they will remain connected to the host to which they connected when they started your HATS LE application. If you change connection settings, these users will use the new settings the next time they start your HATS LE application. If you make changes to the template or transformation settings, connected users will see the changes when their browser is refreshed.

This page also shows whether any other users are currently configuring this application. If you and another administrator configure your application at the same time, the administrator who saves configuration changes last will overwrite the changes saved by the other administrator.

Click Continue to proceed to the Connection Settings page.

Configuring your host connection

The Connection Settings page displays a table listing all of your connections. HATS LE allows for multiple connections giving you access to different hosts. Once the configuration has been made for the main connection and the first time configuration of the application is completed, you can configure multiple connections. After multiple connections are configured and active, you can choose which connection to use.

The table shows connection names, descriptions of the connections, host names as well as what connections are active to your application.

To make a connection active place a check in the Active box next to the desired connection in the table.

You can add additional connections by selecting the Add button, or edit an existing one by selecting Edit. Click Remove to delete a specific connection.

If you select the Add or Edit buttons, you will be asked for to supply the following information:

Click OK when finished or Cancel to return to the Connection Settings page.

Connections can be placed in order of priority followed by descending order of importance. Use the Move Up or Move Down buttons to perform this operation. You can make a connection your default clicking the Select Connection radio button and then selecting the Default button. The default connection will then be highlighted in your connections settings table.

If you use a connection list, make sure you check the Enable user connection list check box. After you have successfully configured your application, a connection list will be added to the index page of your application. You can then select which connection to use from the list. For more information, see Connection List.

Click Finish if you are done configuring your application, or Next to continue to the next step.

Note:
The connection parameters can also be edited at any time by going to the Administrative Console and selecting the Advanced panel. See Modifying your connection file for more information.

Connection List

If you enabled the connection list by selecting the Enable user connection list check box on the Connection Settings page, you can modify how the connection list will look using the Connection List Display Editor.

To launch the editor, you must be in the Administrative Console and click on the Advanced link on the left-hand side. Click the Edit button to launch the editor.

Choose how you want your list to display by selecting either Vertically, with the headers across the top or Horizontally, with the headers across the left side .

The Number of headers to display allows you to pick up to seven header items:

Any of these selections can be displayed as text, links or buttons.

If you check Use translated header, the text will display in the language selected for your application. If you do not check this option, you can enter the text you want to display.

To return to the Advanced page, click Save or Cancel.

Using SSL security

Using a secure connection over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encrypts data flowing over the connection and thus protects it against observation by a third party. If your HATS LE application transforms a 5250 application from a different machine, you can use SSL to protect the communications between your HATS LE application and the host machine.

For a connection to be secured, both the HATS LE application and the Telnet server on the host machine must support SSL. To secure the connection, the Telnet server must provide a certificate, which is used to encrypt the data. If the server does not have a certificate signed by a well-known certificate authority (Thawte, Verisign, or RSA), the HATS LE application must have a copy of the certificate to secure the connection.

If you want your HATS LE application to use SSL to communicate with the host, check Enable SSL on the Connection Settings panel. If a certificate is required by the HATS LE application, copy the required certificate from the Telnet server to the machine from which you are using the configuration wizard, and either select it from the drop-down list (if you have used it before) or click Upload to locate the file and copy it to the machine where your HATS LE application will run.

After configuring your application to use an SSL certificate (either the first time you configure the application or if you switch to a different certificate on a subsequent configuration), you will need to stop and restart your application. This is because SSL certificates are stored in a JAR file which may not get picked up by your application server without restarting your application.

Note:
Depending on how your application server is configured for class reloading, your application may automatically restart when you change your SSL certificate. This is because the SSL certificate is stored in a JAR file that the application server is monitoring for changes. When a change occurs, the application server may restart your application to pick up this change. This process will disconnect any users currently using your application.

If you discover that after having selected an SSL certificate and clicked Finish in the Configuration wizard, the certificate is not being used when you access your application, follow these steps:

  1. From the HATS LE Administrative Console, deactivate your application, so that no new users can access your application.
  2. Stop/restart your application server instance.
  3. Start the Configuration wizard and select the first item in the SSL certificate drop-down list (a blank item). Click Finish. This will cause the SSL certificate JAR to be deleted.
  4. Restart the Configuration wizard and select the desired SSL certificate from the drop-down list.
  5. Navigate through the wizard to the Summary page and check the option to reactivate your application. Click Finish.

Overriding session parameters in the URL

You can select which connection parameters can be overridden by your end user in the URL with which they access your HATS LE application.

To configure URL connection parameter overriding, edit the application.hap application settings file. You can edit this file from the Advanced section in the HATS LE Administrative Console. Edit the following section, under the <classSettings> section of the <application> section:

<class name="com.ibm.hats.common.DefaultConnectionOverrides">
	<setting name="prop1" value="true|false" />
	<setting name="prop2" value="true|false" />
</class>

Where "prop1" and "prop2" are the names of valid HOD session properties. Please refer to Modifying your application file for more information about the application settings file. All attribute names in the <session> tag of the application.hap file are also valid HOD property names, except for "workstationIDSource". For example, to allow your end users to override the host to which your HATS LE application connects, add the following:

<setting name="host" value="true" />

To allow your end users to override all connection parameters, set the following:

<setting name="allowAll" value="true" />

By default, parameter overriding is turned off for each connection parameter. You can explicitly allow all but one or more session parameters to be overridden by setting "allowAll" to "true" and then explicitly setting each parameter you do not wish to make overridable to "false". For example:

<class name="com.ibm.hats.common.DefaultConnectionOverrides">
<setting name="allowAll" value="true" />
<setting name="host" value="false" />
</class>

This configuration will allow your end users to override all connection parameters, except for the host name, via the URL.

If you configure your application to enable your users to override parameters, your end users can then supply these parameters in the initial request they make to your application. For example, to override the host and port number, assuming you have enabled overriding of these parameters, a user could enter this string into his browser:

http://<servername>/HATSLE/entry?host=mysecondary.host.com&port=992

Guaranteeing unique workstation IDs

If you choose to have HATS LE assign workstation ID values based on a string you supply, be sure to include an equal sign (=) before the wild-card character. For example, if you specify ABC* (without an equal sign) as the string from which workstation IDs will be created, HATS LE cannot always assign unique workstation IDs. If you specify ABC=*, HATS LE will assign unique workstation IDs.

Using a template to control your application's appearance

Templates enable you to control the appearance of your HATS LE application. A template is a JSP file with an area reserved for the transformed host screen. The template can contain company logos, information, and links to other Web pages. A template also defines the background color for the area where the transformed host screen appears. Templates contain HTML and JSP code to include some or all of the following:

HATS LE supplies templates that you can use in your projects. You can see the names of these templates on the Template page of the configuration wizard. When you click the name of a template, a small preview appears on the right. Click Preview to see a larger preview.

Using the keyboard and keypads

Users frequently interact with host applications using special keys on the physical keyboard, such as F1, Attn, and Clear. There are two different ways in which the end users of your HATS projects can send keystrokes to the host:

Advanced template configuration

You can perform more advanced configuration by adding a new template, editing an existing template, or exporting a template to your local system so that you can edit it with your favorite workstation editor. If you choose to export a template and edit, you can then add it to upload it to your HATS LE system. To edit this file, start the HATS LE Administrative Console and click Advanced. See Administering your HATS LE Application for information about starting the HATS LE Administrative Console.

Configuring your default transformation

You can determine how your HATS LE application will transform components of the host screen into widgets on a Web page. For example, you can specify that selection lists should be transformed into drop-down lists or lists of links or buttons, how to recognize PF keys on your host screen, and how subfiles should be treated. You can say whether text copied from the host screen should stay the same color or have its color determined by the style sheet. Review the help for details on settings you can configure.

Default transformation features available for a HATS LE V5 application:

Iterative configuration

When you have finished configuring your HATS LE application, the Configuration wizard will provide a link to your application. Click this link to start the application, log in to your host system, and review how the host screens are transformed. If you want to make changes, you can restart the Configuration wizard and change the settings. When you reconfigure your HATS LE application, you might not need to revisit every panel in the Configuration wizard. For example, if you decide to change your template, you do not have to go back through the Transformation Settings panel. Whenever you have completed your changes, you can click Finish to save your changes and exit the wizard.

The first time you configure your HATS LE application, you will see an Activate application check box. By default this box is checked, so that your HATS LE application will be activated when you click Finish. The Configuration wizard remembers the status of this check box and uses it when you click Finish from an earlier panel. This means that if you have left the box checked, your application will be activated when you click Finish from any panel; if you cleared the check box, your application will not be activated when you click Finish. When you click Finish, your browser will show the completion page, which displays the URL for accessing your application.

Advanced configuration

The configuration wizard enables you to create a working Web application with a pleasing appearance. If you want to make further changes to your application, and you have HTML, XML, and JSP skills, you can edit your HATS LE application's file, connection file or template to perform further configurations.

To edit these files, start the HATS LE Administrative Console and click Advanced. See Administering your HATS LE Application for more information on the Administrative Console. See Modifying your application file for a description of the tags used in the application file and Modifying your connection file for a description of tags used in the connection file.

You can also make changes on how the connection list will look using the Connection List Display Editor. For more information, see Connection List.