Preparing a CICS system to act as the Web User Interface server

High-level planning guidance and steps are provided to help you set up your CICS® system to act as your Web User Interface server and to enable web support.

  • The CICS system that you select to act as your Web User Interface server must be a dedicated CICS Transaction Server for z/OS®, Version 5 Release 4 CICSPlex SM MAS connected to a CICS Transaction Server for z/OS, Version 5 Release 4 CMAS. For information about how to set up a MAS, see Setting up a CICS managed application system (MAS).
  • Check the considerations for setting up a WUI server, described in Designing your CICSPlex SM environment.
  • Decide how many Web User Interface servers you require:
    • If you intend to support more than one national language, you require a Web User Interface server for every language you want to support.
    • You can have Web User Interface servers on multiple MVS™ images.
    • You can have more than one Web User Interface server for availability reasons.
    • The Web User Interface server creates and maintains state data when a user signs on using a web browser (or when an application using the data interface DATA/CONNECTs). Because of this state data, an affinity between the web browser or the application using the data interface and the server is created.

      The use of techniques like dynamic virtual IP addresses (DVIPA) or distributed DVIPA might not be able to preserve this affinity. If this affinity is not preserved, web browsers usually redisplay the sign-on screen, or data interface applications receive a BADSTUB status.

To set up your CICS system to act as a Web User Interface server, follow these steps:
  1. Create the CICS system and confirm that it is operational using the CICS-supplied installation verification procedures.
  2. Configure a separate CICSplex for your Web User Interface servers.
  3. Ensure that the CMAS to which the Web User Interface connects is managing all CICSplexes to which the Web User Interface server requires access, because the Web User Interface server acts as an CICSPlex SM API application. However, the CMAS, to which the Web User Interface connects, does not have to manage any of the MASs in these CICSplexes.
    If more than one CMAS is on the MVS image on which the Web User Interface server runs, consider which CMAS the Web User Interface connects to depending on which CICSplexes the CMAS is managing. You have two ways to control this connection:
    • Ensure that the CICSplex to which the Web User Interface server local MAS belongs is managed only by the CMAS or CMASs to which the Web User Interface connects, or
    • Ensure that the Web User Interface server connects to a specific CMAS by specifying the CMASSYSID EYUPARM for the server local MAS.
  4. Define the Web User Interface server CICS system to CICSPlex SM as a local MAS and ensure that the CICS system has been set up correctly using the CICSPlex SM installation verification procedures.
  5. Consider basic monitoring of your Web User Interface servers. You can use standard CICSPlex SM monitoring because the Web User Interface server is defined as a MAS.

Configuring CICS web support

You can configure the Web User Interface to provide web support.

  1. On Web User Interface initialization, a TCPIPSERVICE resource definition is created and opened for you by the Web User Interface. However, you must create a temporary TCPIPSERVICE resource definition to run the CICS web support sample applications. Discard this temporary TCPIPSERVICE resource definition after CICS web support has been tested and before Web User Interface initialization has begun.
  2. For SSL, the Web User Interface can either use the default certificate in the key database or a named certificate. However, it can only use a named certificate only if the label contains only alphanumeric characters and is a maximum of 32 characters.

Configuring CICS web support components explains how to set up the base components of CICS web support and verify its operation using the supplied sample programs.

Configuring CICS to use SSL explains the additional configuration that is required if you want to use the secure sockets layer (SSL).