Tutorials: CICS

Includes tutorials that cover basic CICS support, Web-enabled CICS support, and CICS Web services.

Assumptions

These tutorials are written from the perspective that all of the following is true. Specific instructions for setting up your environment to adhere to these assumptions is found in the Before you begin these tutorials section that follows:

  • The COBOL environment has been set up using the cobsetenv command.
  • Micro Focus Directory Server (mfds) has been activated.
  • The Enterprise Server Common Web Administration (ESCWA) feature has been activated on your local machine.
  • Enterprise Developer is started on your local machine, and the Team Developer perspective and Application Explorer view are open.
  • Eclipse options are set to build projects automatically.
  • Eclipse Enterprise Server preferences have been set to automatically start and stop the associated enterprise server region when debugging, and dynamic debugging is enabled.
  • You are using the Micro Focus Host Access for the Cloud (HACloud) TN3270 emulator when instructed to run an application or transaction in TN3270 mode. If you choose to use an alternative emulator, adjust the instructions to accommodate your software.
  • You have addressed all of the items in the Before you begin a tutorial section below.

Before you begin a tutorial

Before beginning a CICS tutorial, be sure you have addressed each of the following items:

Enterprise Server Security
In this release, the Enterprise Server security features are enabled by default. Tutorials that use enterprise server regions, however, assume that Enterprise Server security is not configured. To work though this tutorial unchanged, you need to disable any configured Enterprise Server security. See To Disable the Default Enterprise Server Security Configuration for details.
Important: Micro Focus does not recommend disabling the security permanently. Re-enable it as soon as possible after completing tutorials. See To Recreate the Default Enterprise Server Security Configuration. For more information, see also After Installing > Enterprise Server Security Considerations.
Start the Micro Focus Directory Server service
  1. At a terminal command prompt, log in as a root user.
  2. Change to the following directory:
    $COBDIR/bin
  3. Execute the mfds command:
    mfds
Start Enterprise Developer
Start Enterprise Developer using the default workspace, which is $home/workspace. If you need instructions to get Enterprise Developer started on your local machine, see To start Enterprise Developer.
Note: If Visual Studio prompts you on startup to select an initial action, click Continue without code.
Open the Team Developer Perspective and Application Explorer View in Eclipse
When you start Enterprise Developer for the first time, the Team Developer perspective starts automatically by default, and shows the Application Explorer view. If this is not the case, open the Team Developer perspective as follows:
  1. From the Eclipse IDE, click Open Perspective Open Perspective.
  2. On the Open Perspective dialog box, select Team Developer (default), and then click Open.

In addition, the Enterprise Development Projects system should be loaded in the Application Explorer view. To confirm this:

  • In the Application Explorer view, you should see the Enterprise Developer system. If the system is not shown, to load it:
    1. Right-click in the Application Explorer view, and then click Add System(s).
    2. In the Add System(s) dialog box, select ED System and click OK.
    3. Expand the top-level Enterprise Developer entry in the Application Explorer view.
    4. Right-click Enterprise Development Projects; then click Load Application.
  • Otherwise, expand the Enterprise Developer system. An entry titled Enterprise Development Projects should appear indicating that the system is loaded.
Set Eclipse to build automatically
By default, the Eclipse Build Automatically option is turned on, which means that Eclipse builds a project automatically each time a change is made. To ensure that this Build Automatically is turned on:
  1. From the Eclipse Main Menu, click Project.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • If the Build Automatically menu option has a check mark to its left, it is already turned on. No further action is required.
    • If the Build Automatically menu option does not have a check mark to its left, click the option to turn it on.
Set Enterprise Server debug options
  1. From the Eclipse main menu, click Window > Preferences.
  2. In the left pane, expand Micro Focus, and click Enterprise Server.
  3. Set the following options to Always, and then click Apply and Close:
    • Automatically start the associated server
    • Automatically stop servers started by Eclipse when closing Eclipse
    • Automatically enable dynamic debugging
Connect to the default ESCWA server
Ensure that Server Explorer contains a connection to the default ESCWA server shipped with the product. (Existing workspaces may already have this connection.)
  1. In the Server Explorer view, click Create a new connection to an existing Enterprise Server Common Web Administration instance (Create a new connection...), or right-click and select New > Enterprise Server Common Web Administration Connection.

    The New Enterprise Server Common Web Administration Connection dialog box is displayed.

  2. In the Name field, type Local.
  3. In the Server address field, type localhost.
  4. In the Server port field, leave the default as 10086.
  5. If the server connection is TLS-enabled, select TLS Enabled, and then click Browse and select the appropriate certificate.
    Note: If TLS Enabled is selected, but you do not specify a certificate, the default Java keystore is searched for a valid one.
  6. Click Finish.

    A connection attempt is made, and if successful, the new ESCWA connection is displayed at the top level, in the Server Explorer.

Start the HACloud Session Server

To start the HACloud session server on UNIX:

  1. Ensure that the installed Java is added to the PATH environment variable.
  2. Start the Enterprise Server region that runs the application you want to connect to.
  3. Open a terminal and set up the COBOL environment in it.
  4. Run the following to start the session server:
    startsessionserver.sh

    Check the terminal for the messages that the Micro Focus HACloud Session Server has started.

Sequence

These CICS tutorials are not interdependent and may be done in any order: