Syslog, short for System Logging Protocol, is one of the cornerstones of modern IT infrastructures. Born in the early days of Unix systems, it has evolved into a standardized mechanism that enables devices and applications to send event and diagnostic messages to a central logging server. Its simplicity, flexibility, and widespread support make it indispensable across networks of any scale.
At its core, Syslog functions as a communication bridge between systems and administrators. It allows servers (also IBM i partitions), routers, switches, and even software applications to report what’s happening inside them—be it routine processes, configuration changes, warning alerts, or system failures. It is also possible that these messages are transmitted in real time to centralized collectors, allowing professionals to stay informed about what’s occurring in their environments without needing to inspect each machine individually.
This centralized approach is critical in environments that demand security and reliability. From banks to hospitals to government networks, organizations rely on Syslog not just for operational awareness but also for auditing and compliance. Log files generated by Syslog can help trace user activities and identify suspicious behavior or cyberattacks. That makes it an essential component in both reactive troubleshooting and proactive monitoring strategies.
So, in IBM i there al least three places in which you are able to generate Syslog.
The first place where you can extract syslog format is the system log. The QSYS2.HISTORY_LOG_INFO function allows you to extract output in this format. In my example, I want to highlight five restore operations performed today: SELECT syslog_facility, syslog_severity, syslog_event FROM TABLE (QSYS2.HISTORY_LOG_INFO(START_TIME => CURRENT DATE, GENERATE_SYSLOG =>'RFC3164' ) ) AS X where message_id='CPC3703' fetch first 5 rows only;
By changing the condition set in the where clause it is possible to work on other msgids that could be more significant, for example it is possible to log the specific msgid for abnormal job terminations (since auditors enjoy asking for extraction on error batches).
The second tool that could be very useful is the analysis of journals with syslog, in fact the QSYS2.DISPLAY_JOURNAL function also allows you to generate output in syslog format. In my example, I extracted all audit journal entries (QSYS/QAUDJRN) that indicated the deletion operation of an object on the system (DO entry type): SELECT syslog_facility, syslog_severity, syslog_event FROM TABLE (QSYS2.DISPLAY_JOURNAL('QSYS', 'QAUDJRN',GENERATE_SYSLOG =>'RFC5424') ) AS X WHERE syslog_event IS NOT NULL and JOURNAL_ENTRY_TYPE='DO';
Of course, it is possible to extract entries for any type of journal, including application journals.
The last place that comes to mind is the system’s syslog service log file. In a previous article, we saw how this service could be used to log SSH activity. In my case the log file is located under /var/log/messages, so with the QSYS2.IFS_READ function I can read it easily: SELECT * FROM TABLE(QSYS2.IFS_READ(PATH_NAME => '/var/log/messages'));
These are just starting points… as mentioned previously, these entries are very important for monitoring events that occur on systems. Having them logged and stored in a single repository for other platforms can make a difference in managing attacks or system incidents in general.
Do you use these features to monitor and manage events on your systems?
One of the tools that I still see underutilized on IBM i systems is function usage. Essentially, it is a tool that can centrally manage permissions and authorizations for the use of certain operating system functions. It is a very powerful tool in itself and must be handled with care. One of the use cases I have seen, for example, is the ability to inhibit access to remote database connections without writing a single line of code by working on user profiles or group profiles.
To view the current status, you can use Navigator or invoke the WRKFCNUSG command. Alternatively, there is a system view that will show the same configuration, you can easily query with: SELECT * FROM QSYS2.FUNCTION_USAGE.
In this window now you are able to see the current configuration of your system:
Now, since you are accessing Navigator, you are encountering a function usage. In fact, there is QIBM_NAV_ALL_FUNCTION, which establishes the access policies of various users to Navigator functions. By default, this function usage is set to prevent all users from using it, while users with *ALLOBJ authorization can use it.
This is because function usage has different levels of authorization: the default authorization that applies to all users, authorization for users with *ALLOBJ, and finally explicit authorizations that can be applied to individual profiles or individual group profiles.
When we talk about function usage, my advice is to choose the approach you want to follow and start applying it to the various components that may be affected by these changes. Let me explain: generally speaking, when it comes to security, there are two approaches: the first allows everything to everyone except those who have expressly denied authorization, while the second denies everything to everyone except certain explicitly authorized users. Obviously, I personally prefer the second approach, but it requires a more in-depth analysis and risk assessment.
Speaking of function usage, in addition to managing permissions on Navigator, it is also possible to manage permissions on BRMS (if installed) and on some TCP/IP servers, which we will now look at.
For example, let’s assume we want to block database connections (QZDASOINIT or DDM/DRDA connections). The strategy is to block access to all users, without distinguishing between *ALLOBJ and non-ALLOBJ, authorizing specific individual users. In this case you need to edit QIBM_DB_ZDA and QIBM_DB_DDMDRDA.
So, as I said in the rows above, we have set DENIED as default and Not Used (is like DENIED) for *ALLOBJ users. Here there is a list of users that is authorized.
On IBM i systems, the SSH service is playing an important role in modernisation, it can be used, for instance, to take advantage of new software development tools such as VS Code For I, or it can be used in an innovative software release context using pipelines. SSH (or rather SFTP) is also playing a key role in securing data exchange flows by gradually replacing the plain-text transfers that used to use the FTP protocol, popular in the IBM i context.
At the moment SSHD server doesn’t have any kind of exit point that we can use in order to restrict or manage connections to this server… This doesn’t mean that is not possibile to make this server secure! In this article we will show how to restrict access to specific users (or groups of users) and log the access attempts that are made.
What do we need to know? Well, the SSHD server has the same behavior that it has on other platforms and therefore allows you to use the same directives, so if you are familiar with some other UNIX like platform, well in this case you won’t have any kind of problem. As far as logging is concerned, again we will use a very convenient and widely used utility on UNIX systems namely syslogd.
How to configure and activate SysLogD?
This service is automatically installed with the 5733SC1 operating system product. Activating the daemon is quite simple, you only need to submit a job that activates it as per this command: SBMJOB CMD(STRQSH CMD(‘/QOpenSys/usr/sbin/syslogd’)) JOB(SYSLOGD) JOBQ(QSYSNOMAX) (P.S. you need to put this command into you QSTRUP)
To check that’s everything ok, you need to look in your NETSTAT opt. 3 and in this way you need to find the UDP port 514 in listening status.
So, now that the deamon is active, you need only to change your SSHD configuration file in order to send to syslog server all entries:
Restart sshd server and check into /var/log/messages or /var/log/auth files
How to restrict access to ssh?
The logic behind the configuration of user restriction in ssh can be bi-directional, i.e. defining a list of users who are not authorised to connect and consequently all the others are, or defining the list of users who are authorised and the others are not. In my case, the choice falls on the second possibility by authorising access to this service to restricted groups of users.
More and more frequently customers are reporting to us that after upgrading to Windows 11 24H2 there are problems with connecting to network shares via Netserver.
Small parenthesis, in itself, the fact that the IFS of an IBM i system is accessible is a great thing, but you have to be extremely careful about what you share and with what permissions you do it. Frequently I see that on systems there is root ( / ) shared read and write, this is very dangerous because in addition to IFS you can browse the other file systems on our systems such as QSYS.LIB and QDLS. So try if possible to share as little as possible with as low permissions as possible. Closing parenthesis.
Returning to the initial issue, indeed it seems that Microsoft with its update (now released a few months ago) has added issues related to the support of certain characters in IFS filenames. Thus, if a folder contains a file with the name consisting of one of the offending special characters, Windows loses access to that folder. The characters that generate these problems are the following: < (less than)
(greater than)
: (colon)
“ (double quote)
/ (forward slash)
\ (backslash)
| (vertical bar or pipe)
? (question mark)
* (asterisk)
Here, as indicated in this IBM documentation link, changing the file names by removing the famous characters will restore access to shared folders. Now, clearly in a production context it is imaginable that there are several shared folders and that IFS is an infinitely large place with infinite files (most of the time abandoned :-D), so it is necessary to find a clever way to check in which shared folders we might have problems. To do this we will rely on two SQL views, the first we need to list the list of folders we are sharing, the second we need to list the paths that contain special characters inside them.
Thanks to the QSYS2.SERVER_SHARE_INFO view, we will have the ability to list the paths that have been shared via netserver with the following query:
select PATH_NAME from QSYS2.SERVER_SHARE_INFO where PATH_NAME is not null
Now that we have the list of all directories shared, we only need to scan the content. Now that we have the list of all shared directories, we just need to analyze the contents. To do this we will use the procedure QSYS2.IFS_OBJECT_STATISTICS which takes as parameters the name of the starting path, any paths to be excluded and an indication of whether to proceed with scanning in the subdirectories, clearly in our case we will tell it to scan those as well. Now, we are not interested in taking all the files, but only those that contain special characters in their name that are not supported by Windows, for which we will apply a WHERE. Here is an example of the query on a small path (take care that this query could run for a lot of time):
SELECT PATH_NAME,CREATE_TIMESTAMP,ACCESS_TIMESTAMP,OBJECT_OWNER
FROM TABLE (
QSYS2.IFS_OBJECT_STATISTICS(
START_PATH_NAME => '/qibm/ProdData/Access/ACS/Base',
OMIT_LIST => '/QSYS.LIB /QNTC /QFILESVR.400',
SUBTREE_DIRECTORIES => 'YES')
)
WHERE PATH_NAME LIKE '%\%'
OR PATH_NAME LIKE '%<%'
OR PATH_NAME LIKE '%>%'
OR PATH_NAME LIKE '%|%'
OR PATH_NAME LIKE '%*%'
OR PATH_NAME LIKE '%:%'
OR PATH_NAME LIKE '%?%'
In my example I took a fairly small path (the one with the ACS installer) and it took a short time. Moreover, no file contains any wrong characters so I can rest assured, in fact it did not return any rows.
At this point, there is nothing left to do but combine the two queries into a very simple RPG program. Now, considering that the second scan query can take a long time, it is a good idea to submit its execution, saving the results in another table.
As you can see, my program is pretty short, only combining two easy queries, and in this way you are able to find every file that will break shares. At the end of the execution, please check MYSTUFF/SHARECHAR file, here you can find details about file as path name, owner, creation and last access timestamp.
Remember, this is SQL, so you can also change whathever you want such as column, destination file and so on.
I hope I give you a way to save you time with this that can be a rather insidious and annoying problem.
The past few days have been very full of announcements for IBM i system builders, in fact a new major release of the operating system was announced (strange since we are talking about an operating system that some people call dead :-D) namely IBM i V7R6M0. As enthusiastic as I am about it, I will wait to do an ad hoc article as soon as I have had the opportunity to test first-hand all the new features presented. In addition to version 7.6 last week the new Technology Refresh 6 was announced for version 7.5, again I am eager to see what new features they have thought of. A first alarm bell on the other hand must start ringing for all those who have systems with the 7.4 release, this is because it was announced that no new features will be released and this somewhat foreshadows the announcement of the end of support for that release, although you need not worry, from the date of the announcement you have one year to upgrade to 7.5 or 7.6.
In today’s article, however, we are talking about ACS, the tool that we all use on a daily basis to connect in greenscreen mode to systems. in fact, version 1.1.9.8 has been released which contains new and interesting features:
MFA support: this feature affects 7.6 systems, in fact it allows to use the client to manage MFA of the accounts on which it has been configured
binary object preview: thanks to this new feature it will be possible directly from RUN SQL SCRIPT to preview binary objects saved in our tables like BLOB, BINARY and VARBINARY without using external products. To do this just launch the query that includes the field of interest and right click on the field and select VIEW COLUMN DATA
formatting numeric values: how convenient is it to have numeric separators available especially when we are working with numbers with very large values? Here, with the new version of ACS it will be possible to go and insert separators of on the numeric columns in such a way as to simplify their reading
new IFS duplicate feature: from IFS the ability to duplicate IFS files has been added, to do this, right click on the object to duplicate and choose DUPLICATE. This is one of the features that I will use most IFS manager of the ACS. Another feature that I really like is the one related to the transfer of objects from one partition to another, it is very convenient, especially when you have files to transfer to several partitions
Updating the client is very simple, either you download it from the IBM site, or you install a PTF (depends on the release, you can find the documentation at the bottom of the article) and set ACS to search for the new version directly from that system, this is very convenient when you have several client installations on users’ PCs.
In the many realms of IBM i, whether you are a systems engineer, programmer or just an end user, one of the core mechanisms of the operating system is related to the scheduler and its operation. The system scheduler (WRKJOBSCDE) is a very (perhaps too) basic tool, allowing little customization, so it is not uncommon to see custom schedulers created ad hoc in customer systems. A very viable alternative, however, is the Advanced Job Scheduler product, which is distributed in the operating system installation CDs and has code 5770JS1. Lo and behold, until a few years ago the product was available by license, but since last year the tune has changed, i.e., the product no longer requires any license, just install a PTF (link to IBM doc).
Here, compared to the system scheduler, this product has many, many features and customizations that makes it perfectly adaptable to customers’ needs. Here are some features that I particularly like:
group management: with AJS you can go and define chains of scheduled jobs without needing to do it all through CL programs. In this way you can give your jobs a proper dependency order by also setting auxiliary jobs to be submitted in case of errors in the chain
scheduling customization: with AJS you can go and define special rules related to schedules, for example you can go and run the same job several times a day, rather than submitting it at certain times of the day following scheduling calendars, all without putting in lots of different jobs doing the same thing. With AJS it is also possible to condition the submission of jobs on the presence of for example dtaara or the fact that other jobs not in my chain are not active
default parameter management: how convenient to be able to run jobs related to an application or some system function (e.g., backup) with the exact same parameters, such as job queue or user. Here, with AJS you can go and define default parameters for your applications, so that they all run with the same parameters
monitoring: with AJS you can go define a specific message queue in which to send all information related to submitted jobs and their outcome, in which case monitoring that queue will allow you to be able to have information related to the status of the jobs. In addition, it is possible through AJS to set up sending MAIL notifications upon job completion so that you know in real time what has happened
management via Navigator: for about a year, for versions 7.4 and 7.5 with HTTP groups, a lot of AJS functions have been added that can be managed directly via Navigator For I, and yes, it’s really cool because in addition to simplifying the management of the scheduler, it allows you to unlock a lot of features and customizations that are not available via greenscreen, so yes, take a look at it, it’s very interesting
High avalability: it is possible to have multiple AJS instances active at the same time on the systems, this allows for example to have an instance that resides on SYSBAS and an instance that resides on iASP in such a way as to have the information of the jobs that also run on the other systems that share the same iASP
In this example I will show you how I configured all the backup jobs on my system, including the actual backup submission, maintenance brms and duplication on physical tape:
All backups jobs run with the same parameters, here a detail of the application configuration:
Here the same list from Navigator:
Another interesting feature of this tool is that you can choose to run scheduled jobs on other partitions, for instance on your prodution environment you can choose to sumbit job to other partitions:
From JS menu options 5 (System controls) and options 7 (Work with Operating System job schedule entries) you can also import WRKJOBSCDE jobs into AJS:
So, here is a short review of this amazing product, and you, do you use AJS or have you ever tried it?
