Re: Passing User ID and Password in Applet

Hello Pete,

I think you are completely right in your interpretation. The SSL or VPN 
tunnel would encrypt all communcation between the PC and the (web and 
AS400) server. If the user would popup the HTML source he would indeed see 
(his own?) userid and password. 

The auto disconnect feature as you describe it would indeed do an signoff 
endcnn(*yes) as final command. For the Java part you would have to popup 
an applet or frame or whatever to create a session, launch it, add a 
session listener to it that closes on disconnection. I'll look into 
providing an example.

Wim.





Pete Helgren <[email protected]> 
Sent by: [email protected]
16/06/2005 18:35
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Thanks to all.  You gave me much to think about....

Wim, I don't know much about SSL or how it is initiated but I thought that 
if you used SSL the stream was fully encrypted.  That is, if you are using 
SSL then the traffic that is passing over port 992 is encrypted, even the 
signon screen.  Is that the case?  Also, our HTML based menuing system can 
run in an HTTPS environment so executing the applet under HTTPS would 
encrypt the page I think, though if the user viewed the page source they 
would see the password in plain text, right?  The encryption is just used 
between the browser and the server.  The HTML as rendered by the browser 
is still in plain text. It *could* allow a user to view the source on 
another user's browser and see the password (at least I think this is 
possible).

I think I understand the applet ending routine that you currently have but 
since I don't work that closely with the internals of 5250 some of what 
you and Kenneth are saying is going over my head.  And I am still a 
relative rookie with Java so I need a bit more info and, if you can, a 
small snippet of code that demonstrates what you are talking about.  For 
example, when you say "wrap the command" and then use a signoff with a 
disconnect, are you saying that I could just have a CL program that has a 
call to whatever program we want to run (in fact, we already have this) 
and then at the end of the command use SIGNOFF ENDCNN(*YES)?  I think you 
also are saying that we need to add a sessionlistener to the applet code 
and then use that to trigger the navigation when the session is 
disconnected.  I am not familiar with using a sessionlistener but with an 
example I think I can figure it out (code examples are always helpful).

It sounds like that is the way to go.  Adding a SIGNOFF ENDCNN(*YES) 
should be easy enough but I need a little help with the sessionlistener 
logic.

Thanks! Now I just need to deal with the password issue and I think I have 
it.

Pete

BTW Kenneth, Gaurav posted his code to the list on July 2nd, 2003.  If you 
can't find it in the archives, I can send it to you.

[email protected] wrote: 

Hello Pete, 

I'm not quite sure why everybody make a problem about the clear passwords. 
When you would send them encrypted, the emulator telnets to the AS/400 and 
what does he do in the first place: send your userid and password to the 
as/400. I think that these are in clear text also. The only solution would 
be to SSL or VPN your communication to your webserver and AS/400. 

Next the autoclosing is fairly easy to implement using the autologin and 
scanning we have introduced in the emulator: when logging on you want to 
autostart a command. Lets call this the application command. What you can 
do is wrap this app command in you own shell command. e.g. start 
cmd('appcmd'). The start can do a few thing like setting liblists etc. But 
it's main purpose is to properly shutdown the emulator. You can do this in 
2 ways: to a signof with disconnect. At the emulator side, you can attach 
a sessionlistener and have you applet navigate away from you page as the 
session gets disconnected. Or the start command can also trigger a scan 
code to the emulator: #! END so the applet can listen to this and perform 
an end of session. This way you can do a lot more than just ending. 

Hope this helps, 
Wim. 



Pete Helgren <[email protected]> 
Sent by: [email protected] 
15/06/2005 21:06 

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I had posted some of this about two years ago when I first started 
working with the 5250 applet.  The problems that I had (and still have) 
have to do with the passing of UserID and password in the clear when I 
start an applet session.  Gaurav posted some code that has a servlet 
that talks to the applet and passes the password back to it.  I think I 
can follow the approach but wanted to know if anyone else had solved 
this problem in a different way.

We have an HTML based menuing system that runs on the iSeries (under an 
Apache web server).  The user logs in via an HTML login prompt and then 
the menu(s) are generated from there.  Some of the menu items are HTML 
based but some are 5250 apps and we launch them using tn5250j in an 
applet.  We generate the HTML that launches the applet on the fly using 
a template but so far we have had to pass the password in the clear, not 
a good solution.  So, if you have any ideas that we could use to start 
the applet without passing the password in the clear, I'd like to hear 
about it.

We also have a need to end the application gracefully when the users are 
done running the 5250 application.  Right now, we display a message that 
says "Click the Exit link to end the program" and the user has to click 
the link to end the session.  What I would like to do is have the applet 
close when the 5250 application has ended automatically.  I am not sure 
how to accomplish this since the 5250 session would have to "tell" the 
applet to close....

I'd appreciate anyone's idea as to how to solve these two issues as 
simply as possible. 

Thanks,

Pete Helgren


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