Returning information to CICS

At the INSTALL event, the autoinstall control program is responsible for allowing or denying the connection of a new terminal resource to the CICS® system. This decision can be based on a number of installation-dependent factors, such as security or the total number of connected terminals. CICS takes no part in any such checking. You decide whether any such checking takes place, and how it is done.

If the INSTALL request is to proceed, the control program must do the following:
  • Return an autoinstall model name in the first 8 bytes of the area addressed by fullword 4 of the parameter list, unless this is already set by MTS support.

    If the control program returns a model name that is not in the subset passed to it by CICS, CICS cannot guarantee what will happen when further processing takes place. It is the user's responsibility to determine the effect of associating any particular logon request with a particular model name, because no interface is provided to the in-storage “model” objects.

  • Supply a CICS terminal name (TERMID) in the next four bytes of the return area.

    DFHZATDX takes the last four nonblank characters of the NETNAME (addressed by fullword 2 of the parameter list) as the terminal name, so you must code your own autoinstall program if this does not match the naming conventions of your installation. See Setting the TERMINAL name for information on this.

    Note that when processing an AUTOINSTALL request for an LU6.2 single session terminal, the four byte terminal identifier returned by the user program is used to name a CONNECTION. Therefore, the terminal identifer must conform to the naming standards for a CONNECTION (rather than a TERMINAL), as defined in CONNECTION attributes. The user program could identify an LU6.2 AUTOINSTALL request in one of the following ways:
    • Use a MODEL naming convention and examine the model name pointed to by fullword 3.
    • Test bytes 14 and 15 of the CINIT BIND, which is pointed to by fullword 5 for X'0602' (LU6.2).
  • Set the return code to X'00'.

    On entry to the autoinstall control program, the return code always has a nonzero value. If you do not change this, the autoinstall request is rejected.

If you are using MTS, the z/OS Communications Server supplies the PRINTER and ALTPRINTER NETNAMEs, if specified.

The printers need not be installed at this stage; however, they must be installed before you use Print Key support. PRINTER and ALTPRINTER IDs override PRINTER and ALTPRINTER NETNAMEs.

Note that TERMID, PRINTER, and ALTPRINTER are the only attributes of the TERMINAL definition that can be set by the autoinstall control program; all other attributes must come from one of the following sources:
  • The z/OS Communications Server LOGMODE entry (MODEENT)
  • The autoinstall model TERMINAL definition
  • The TYPETERM definition that it refers to
  • The QUERY function
  • Model names from z/OS Communications Server MDLTAB MDLENT and the NETNAMEs of the printers from z/OS Communications Server ASLTAB ASLENT (if you are using MTS).
Note:
  1. The QUERY function overrides any extended attributes specified in the TYPETERM definition.
  2. You cannot override information in the LOGMODE entry with the model TERMINAL and TYPETERM; they must match.

If your control program decides to reject the INSTALL request, it should return to CICS with a nonzero value in the return code.

Having completed processing, the control program must return to CICS by issuing an EXEC CICS RETURN command.