SILK Web -- Articles and Documentation
From INTERFACE 203 - December 15, 1997
Web Sponsor (Phase II) Is Available for Evaluation
All of the functions of the WYLBUR's ENTER SPONSOR facility have now been integrated into "Web Sponsor." This easy-to-use web interface greatly simplifies sponsor account management and makes use of web capabilities—such as input areas, radio buttons, drop-down list boxes, text areas—to provide a simple point-and-click interface to sponsor functions.
Phase II—now available for testing—allows sponsors to add new users, close accounts, reassign initials, reset passwords, and perform all of the other functions available in ENTER SPONSOR. All the account and initials display capabilities of ENTER SPONSOR have been available since January 1997 when "Webinfo" (Phase I) was introduced.
The Web Sponsor functions available for evaluation fall into three categories: Account Request allows sponsors to:
You must be the sponsor or alternate for the specified account and have preferred initials.
Account-Initials Request allows sponsors to: You must be the sponsor or alternate for the specified account and have preferred initials.
Initials Request allows sponsors to: You must be the sponsor for at least one account for which the initials are valid and have preferred initials.
In Phase II "Webinfo" is also available from the WEB SPONSOR homepage.
Your Evaluation Benefits Us All
If you are an account sponsor and wish to assist in the evaluation of Phase II, please send e-mail to wkj@nih.gov. Your input will be very important in making Web Sponsor as useful as possible for all account sponsors—and this is an opportunity to ensure the facility has the features you require.
RACF Protection through SILK Web Coming Next Month
A new SILK Web application will be available for all registered users of the MVS South system on January 26, 1998. This new facility will allow you to provide and maintain RACF protection for data sets in much the same way the ENTER RACF command does in WYLBUR—with the ease of a web interface.
On January 26, just point your browser to http://silk.nih.gov/racf and select the RACF functions you need. You will be able to
- change a RACF password
- create, maintain, or delete RACF user-defined groups
- create, maintain, or delete generic RACF protection
- create, maintain, or delete discrete RACF protection
- display attributes of RACF-protected resources
A valid userid (account and initials, as in aaaaiii) and MVS password are required to submit any RACF request. In addition, the userid you enter must be authorized to perform all of the RACF functions you request. Generally, this means you must be the owner of the protection for the data sets. If you must modify several RACF profiles owned by more than one user, you must restart your browser and switch to the other owner’s userid (required by the way the popular browsers function).
Generic Profiles Are Recommended
While both generic and discrete RACF profiles are supported by this new facility, the NIH Computer Center recommends the use of generic profiles to protect data sets (discrete profiles provide RACF protection to a single data set). Generic profiles allow you to extend RACF protection to multiple data sets based on naming conventions and wildcard masking characters, and are easy to set up and maintain. By using the mask characters —%, *, and **—many data sets can be protected. For example, the RACF profile
aaaaiii.mydata.** will protect the data set aaaaiii.mydata, as well as any data set name beginning with aaaaiii.mydata (such as aaaaiii.mydata.a.b). See section 4.5.4 of the NIH Computer Center User’s Guide for a more thorough discussion of generic profiles and how the mask characters work.
In addition, if a data set with generic protection is scratched or deleted, the protection remains, so if the data set is recreated it is automatically protected. Conversely, if a data set protected by a discrete profile is scratched, the RACF protection is removed. So if a data set is recreated it would be unprotected unless another discrete profile was established. The principal benefit of using a discrete profile over a generic is that if both types of protection are in place, the discrete protection will be used. Generic protection is the default when using the SILK RACF facility.
RACF groups offer a convenient way to control access to one or more data sets. When you protect a data set you specify an access list of users who will be able to read or update the data set. The access list may include RACF groups, so you can maintain a single RACF group containing the RACFids of persons who are able to access your data sets.
The new SILK RACF facility provides an easier way to protect your data sets. There are no batch jobs to fetch and examine as with ENTER RACF, and functions are grouped sensibly for ease of use. This new SILK RACF facility will eventually replace the ENTER RACF function.
Formsmail—E-Mailing Information from Web Forms in One Easy Step
NIH Computer Center's SILK Web technologies has a new facility, Formsmail—a simple mechanism for sending information collected via an online web form directly to a specific, predetermined e-mail address. Using the Formsmail facility on the MVS South system, a registered user can now set up a form on any web server (including SILK Web customized servers) and easily receive the resulting information via e-mail.
How Easy Is It?
Once you have created the HTML form to collect the necessary information, merely specify
in your <form...> tag and include a "hidden" input field with a name of "to" and a value that specifies the e-mail address to receive the values specified by the submitter. For example:
<input type=hidden name=to value="my.name@nih.gov">
The specified e-mail address will receive e-mail containing the name of each input field, drop-down list box, radio button, etc., and the value specified by the submitter. The information e-mailed is also displayed to the submitter unless the "msg" hidden field (see below) is specified.
The following optional hidden fields may also be used:
<input type=hidden name=subj value="e-mail subject">
<input type=hidden name=msg value="user message">
<input type=hidden name=msg value="<h2>Thank you.</h2>">
The submitter of the information will be prompted for a user name (account/initials) and password. The e-mail transmitted from the submitted form will contain the specified initials in the "From:" field of the e-mail.
The form may reside on any web server—including a SILK customized server—or as an "@WWW." data set. See the SILK webpage http://silk.nih.gov/ for more information on this and other SILK facilities.
Public Forms are Also Possible
You can create a "public" form so that submitters are not required to specify a user name and password. However this does require setup by NIH Computer Center staff before it can take effect. If you wish to create a public form, you must specify an account/initials under which the mail can be submitted. This ensures that the mail received came from your form. To request setup for a public form, go to the SILK webpage and send e-mail to the SILK webmaster.
Linking MVS Data Sets with Webpages in a SILK Customized Server
An important option of SILK Web's customized servers is the ability to associate MVS data sets with webpages (or URLs). If you are the owner of a SILK customized server and wish to access this option, use a web browser to open http://silk.nih.gov/msilk. This page displays any existing SILK customized servers of which you are an owner. You then simply
- click on a server name
- choose option "Add a page using an existing MVS file"
- enter a webpage name that you would like and click the "Add" button
- on the form that is displayed, enter the MVS data set name that you would like associated with the webpage
- press the "Create" button
For example, say that you have clicked on your server called "Personnel." You could create a webpage called "Leave" and associate an MVS data set called "aaaaiii.hr.leave" (aaaa is your registered DCRT account and iii your initials). Whenever a web browser requests http://silk.nih.gov/silk/personnel/leave, the contents of MVS data set "aaaaiii.hr.leave" would be displayed. (The initial part of web addresses—http://silk.nih.gov/silk/personnel/—is not included in the following examples.)
A drop-down list box allows you to select the appropriate document type for the webpage:
"text/html" - for data sets containing html tags
"text/plain" - for data sets containing text only
"dataset/cc" - for data sets containing text with a carriage control (cc) character in column 1
"suffix" - for data sets that have a document type as the last qualifier in the data set
That is, in the "suffix option" the webpage name aaaaiii.mypage.html would be interpreted as "text/html" whereas aaaaiii.myimage.gif would be interpreted as "image/gif."
You could also create a webpage called "policies/overtime" and associate it with a member of an MVS partitioned data set—for example, with "aaaaiii.hr.policy(ot)". Notice that the webpage name can contain "/" to indicate subdirectory.
Wildcards in Web Addresses
Webpage addresses containing wildcards can also be created. Wildcard webpages use "*" to indicate a value that will be determined dynamically. A portion of the webpage names will be used to determine the MVS data set name that is to be displayed. For example:
- You could create a webpage called "Vacancies/*" and associate it with the MVS data set "aaaaiii.vac.*". When the web address is supplied by the user, the portion corresponding to the "*" will be substituted into the "*" in the MVS data set name. If the incoming web address was vacancies/tech/cs001, then MVS data set "aaaaiii.vac.tech.cs001" would be displayed. Note that a "/" in the web address is automatically converted to a "." in the data set name.
- You could create a webpage name called "Training/*" and associate it with a member of an MVS data set "aaaaiii.train.course(*)". Then when web address training/crs1234 is requested, MVS data set "aaaaiii.train.course(crs1234)" would be displayed.
Wildcard webpages reduce server administration. You do not have to manually associate each webpage with a specific data set. The association happens dynamically when the web address is requested.
We strongly recommend the use of RACF profiles to protect the MVS data set that you display on the web. These RACF profiles can protect your data from unwanted access.
Printing and Downloading from WYLBUR via the Web
You can use the "@WWW" facility of SILK Web servers to easily print the contents of a WYLBUR active file on your local PC printer or download it to your workstation. The files can include contents of a data set that has been "USEd" in WYLBUR, an ENTER MAIL item, or even the output of a job that had been "FETCHed." Once the data is in an active file, merely save (or resave) it with a dsname beginning with "@WWW." and with the variable option. (See an explanation for using the variable and always options at the end of this article.)
If you wish to print the data set, the last qualifier of the dsname should be ".txt". You can then open http://silk.nih.gov/secure/aaaaiii.wylbur-dsname to bring the data set into your browser. Clicking on the browser "Print" button will print the contents on your locally attached or network printer. In the following examples, assume your account is AAAA and your initials are III.
Printing a Data Set Locally
- Enter the following commands:
USE CLR FROM dsname
RESAVE AS @WWW.TEMP.TXT VARIABLE ALWAYS
From your web browser
- Open http://silk.nih.gov/secure/AAAAIII.@WWW.TEMP.TXT
- Click on the "Print" button
Printing a Mail Item in ENTER MAIL
From ENTER MAIL
- Enter the command:
Command? RESAVE AS @WWW.TEMP.TXT VARIABLE ALWAYS
- Open http://silk.nih.gov/secure/AAAAIII.@WWW.TEMP.TXT
- Click on the "Print" button
Downloading a Data Set to a Workstation
If you wish to download the contents of an active file to your workstation, save the @WWW. dataset as above—but with a last qualifier of "dnldtxt". Opening up the webpage http://silk.nih.gov/secure/aaaaiii.wylbur-dsname will produce a prompting box within your browser asking if you wish to save the file. Click on "Yes," and you will be asked to specify the file name on your workstation. Once the download has completed, the file will be available as a text file for use on your workstation. For example, to download the data set "time.data" from WYLBUR:
- Enter the following commands:
RESAVE AS @WWW.TEMP.DNLDTXT VARIABLE ALWAYS
- Open http://silk.nih.gov/secure/AAAAIII.@WWW.TEMP.DNLDTXT
Your browser will then prompt you for the file name and complete the download process.
The Variable—and Always—Options
The variable option was used so that the "@WWW." data set was not saved in WYLBUR edit format—a format not understood by browsers. The always option was specified in order to save the data set in case it does not yet exist.
A Bookmark Is Handy
If you always use the same "@WWW." dsname to hold the information to be printed or downloaded, set a browser bookmark. Then a simple click on the bookmark (and on the Refresh button) is faster than opening the web address. This provides a quick, easy way to print on your local desktop printer information stored on MVS.
Updated 4/22/99 Please send comments to SILKMASTER |
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