Over the past few years, I've had the chance to teach some courses about .NET development for the IBM i. During that time, I've developed some documents that show how to check your version of System i Access for Windows, and another document that shows how to authenticate ASP.NET users against IBM i user profiles. When it looks like a document could help somebody, I usually just email it to them. I've now posted the documents to my web site, so if you want to, go ahead and download them. A brief description of the documents follows.

Verify IBM i Access (V5Rx, V6Rx)

These are two separate PDF files, one for IBM System i Access for Windows V5Rx, the other for the current System i Access for Windows V6Rx. The trick with System i Access is to understand that IBM uses the same version/release/modification number that they (formerly) used for OS/400. For example, you could have System i Access for Windows V5R1M0 installed on your PC, connected to and working with an IBM i at OS/400 V5R4M0. These documents show you how to identify which version of System i Access you have installed on your PC and how to verify which Service Level is installed. The documents also show how to download the Service Pack from IBM's System i Access web site; you do not have to wait to install PTFs on your IBM i in order to update your PC's level (that's kind of a 90's thing).

The reason why I developed these documents is to show you that you get the IBM .NET Provider starting at System i Access for Windows V5R3M0, and how to check for it.

If you are developing ASP.NET applications, you will want to pay particular attention to the VRM that you use on your PC, and the VRM that is installed on your ASP.NET web server. From personal experience, I can relate to you that if you develop and test with a current, up-to-date service level, and install to a non-current, not-up-to-date service level server, you will potentially have a lot of difficult to resolve problems. Using these documents, you can quickly check to see that your server is at the same level, or if you are not allowed to personally check the server machine, you can give the document to the person who can check it.

And the links? Here they are:

• http://www.web400.com/myinet/Verify_IBMiAccess_V5Rx.pdf
• http://www.web400.com/myinet/Verify_IBMiAccess_V6Rx.pdf

Authenticate to IBM i User Profiles

Although it would be inadvisable to create a public-facing web site that uses IBM i user profiles for authentication, there are times when you do want to use that technique. This document shows how you can use the Microsoft Custom Membership Provider technique that was introduced with ASP.NET 2.0, along with the Login controls. Included with the document is a CL program that you call from ASP.NET; the CL program uses the QSYGETPH (Get Profile Handle) API to validate the user profile and password.

A person in one of my classes recently tried to use the programs shown in this document and reported an error that I could not replicate. His resolution was to install Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (which most likely contains updates to .NET Framework code), after which he reported that the programs work. So please be sure that you are up-to-date on your PC, in terms of Visual Studio and .NET service packs.

The link:

• http://www.web400.com/myinet/Authenticate.pdf