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Inventu Viewer+ Setups 2022I2

September 20, 2022 by ViewerAuthor

Support for OAuth2 OpenID Connect, Improved Support for Clustered Servers and Additional Fixes and Enhancements

Inventu Viewer+ Base Product and Components

(Version: 6.0.81 September 20, 2022)

https://software.inventu.com/2022I2?dl=IVSetup64.exe (64bit)

FVTerm Web Terminal Emulation

  • Oauth2 OpenID Connect has been added as an identity management option. Tested with Auth0, Okta, Salesforce and Microsoft Azure AD.
  • The FVHealth.aspx module, used by load balancers to check on the health of a server has been updated to incorporate the new “Server Report Over Percentage” Advanced setting in the Profiles Configuration page. When the Server Report Over Percentage is set to a different value than 0, there will be a calculation based on other server availability—if the server reporting has fewer available sessions by the percentage set, it will report “OVER” instead of “ACTIVE” as part of the status message.  An example message returned is “OVER – 123 Sessions Available; Other Server(s)=137, Over=11%”.   This will also return the Server Unavailable Response Code if it is something other than 200.
  • Some 3270 screens that extensively used extended attributes broke the password recognition javascript so that a password field would not be masked with asterisks. Was happening if a password entry field was defined and then had the color changed in the first character.
  • SAML 2.0 active user information data is now saved to disk and restored if the FVTerm v4.0 Application Pool is recycled (also with OpenID Connect).
  • The Web Socket Handler was improved so that the task monitoring terminal session changes is persistent and in a tight loop, communicating events to the websocket task via a queue–this was previously returning an event and then re-started following each host event or timeout.
  • Web Socket handler cleanup following a websocket error or session closing is faster and more efficient in resource utilization.
  • When a DBCS field contains a single blank, the ViewerLib API fix is interpreted in the Javascript using a new protocol command
  • Function key recognition improved
  • For 5250 and 3270 field formatted screens, clipboard paste of multi-row column data from a spreadsheet was not aligning with fields arranged as columns on a target screen. Rather than starting on the next row when the last field on a spreadsheet row was pasted, the paste would just continue on the next field, same row instead of starting on the next row.
  • Some 5250 screens with certain attributes were rendered incorrectly due to a change intended to reduce data transmission sizes.
  • Some host screen updates were locking the keyboard with a large buffer update followed by a small buffer with the keyboard unlock. Sync with the client was improved so that if an update is received and the keyboard is still locked, ½ second wait for next update to reduce buffers sent to the client.  Generally the wait is for a millisecond as the next buffer is right there.
  • Default IO threads increased over prior default to improve performance with large number of active sessions
  • The web API call that can be used for distributed load balancing (no load balancer needed), fvterm/Cluster/balanceinfo.aspx improved to better handle error conditions and service-down issues.

FlyServer Emulation Service

  • Clustered server status tickets were upgraded to include complete status of the server sending the ticket.
  • Clustered servers will now accept a new user or session start even when at full allocation for the concurrent user or session license. This will occur as long as other servers in the cluster have available sessions.  In prior versions, this would only occur if one or more of the other server(s) in the cluster were on hold or offline.  From this version on, a server will not reject a new connect unless all servers in a cluster are at full capacity.
  • Clustered servers will now keep track of session availability to support the ability for a server in the cluster to report the new “OVER” status for a load balancer. This is further explained in the Profiles Mode Configuration and FVTerm Web Terminal Emulator sections.
  • A character used for Telnet escape sequences was appearing in random SSH ASCII protocol buffers. This was being interpreted as a Telnet escape sequence (character is 0xFF) but then would not have a valid “next” character in the supposed sequence.  Between 2022F2 and 2022G1 this was logged and the active buffer abandoned.  In this release the 0xFF is converted to a blank and ignored (buffer is completed).
  • TN3270 Internal buffer sizes could have 0xFF characters causing problems in rare circumstances. Fixed in this build.
  • Unknown TN3270 WSF commands were being logged, but not including a comprehensive full buffer log (in the recordings folder as an “Event*.log” file). As part of a concerted effort to identify all unsupported protocol issues unknown WSF commands will now be fully logged.
  • TN3270 IND$File binary downloads were hanging when a 0xFF character appeared as the last character in a buffer.
  • TN3270 Modify Field commands with invalid offsets were being logged to the event log but without needed information to understand the possible issue—added comprehensive full buffer log.
  • Added a new registry setting – “SessionTracking” which defaults to “no” –Session tracking creates a log in the data folder for each ID, like “Session_1.log” and so on.
  • The text string “*TIMEOUT*” was causing logging in the data folder each time a session timed out. This was unintentional and causes the presence of trace files with nothing but timeout entries.  This has been changed to –TIMEOUT– to avoid this unnecessary tracing.
  • TN5250 DBCS (Double Byte Character Set) had some combinations of field types that were not being properly translated at the server
  • Tweaks for TN3270 IND$File file transfers to improve reliability on very large transfers and data escapes.
  • SSH ASCII terminal types can include the 0xFF character in datastreams that was causing problems since this is a Telnet command escape character. If SSH, the 0xFF character will not cause an error if not part of a Telnet escape and will be replaced with a blank (0x20).
  • Fixed trace issue that would create an event log entry for sharing problem with flyserv_n.log file
  • Internal synchronization tweaked to avoid rare locking issues.

Profiles Mode Configuration

  • Added new Security Option- Oauth2 OpenID Connect as well as the necessary configuration settings.
  • Added a new entry on the Web Server tab in the Advanced section for clustered servers: Server Report Over Percentage.  This setting can produce better allocation of sessions between servers when it is found that a load balancer is allocating too many sessions or users to a particular server.  Due to round-robin being simplistic, this can happen most often when the active license is user-based.
  • Online Help for Security was organized so that each Identity option has its own section now in the Table of Contents (OpenID Connect also added)

Diagnostics Dashboard

  • First introduced in June, continuous improvements have been made to the Diagnostics Dashboard
    This provides extensive analysis of the Event Log to identify issues and corrective actions. It includes:

    • Parsing and analysis of active Event Log entries along with a consolidated viewer of Informational, warning and error events.
    • Suggested Actions along with linked help for identified issues
    • Tests of the active Emulation Service and the IIS FVTerm Application
    • Easy export of all diagnostic logs and events to a zip file for appending to an Inventu Support Ticket
    • Easy Export of configuration elements for replication on another server or to provide to Inventu appended to a support ticket

Viewer Administration Console

  • Added new Settings for Service—
    • “Create MiniDumps on Exception” – Default is Yes / Checked, will create a Minidump on exception saved in the active data/logging folder. The “Catch Program Exceptions” must be checked for this option to work
    • “Track Session LifeCycles” – Default is No / Unchecked. When checked, will create key session start/stop events as Session_n.log in the active data/logging folder

ViewerLib API

  • Added a new property to the HostConnection object – mostOtherAvailableLicenses which can be used in conjunction with the availableLicenses property to calculate a server’s percentage of under or over allocation.
  • Screen-to-HTTP streaming function fixed to accommodate when a DBCS field contains single blanks, which are represented using a single “start DBCS data” character instead of a blank.

Installer

  • The installer will now set the shortcuts for the FVTerm web application to match the default web folder—this includes both requiring FVTerm in the URL as well as not (when FVTerm is set as the default for the website).
  • The installer will now set the FVTerm v4.0 IIS Application pool recycling settings to avoid issues caused by IIS defaults:
    • Disable Overlapped Recycle set TRUE to ensure any active data saves from the live FVTerm process are saved prior to the new process restoring the data, which includes active SAML 2.0 and Oauth2 OpenID Connect user profiles.
    • Recycling Regular Time Interval (minutes) changed to 0 (no regular recycle)
    • Shutdown time limit set to 5 minutes (default 90 seconds)
    • Idle Time-out (minutes) set to 0 (no timeout) from default 20 minutes.

 

Filed Under: Admin, Uncategorized, Web Terminal Emulation

Inventu Viewer+ Setups 2022F2

June 14, 2022 by ViewerAuthor

Improved Support for Concurrent User Licenses, New Diagnostics Dashboard and Additional Fixes and Enhancements

Inventu Viewer+ Base Product and Components

(Version: 6.0.69 June 22, 2022)

https://software.inventu.com/2022F2?dl=IVSetup64.exe (64bit)

FlyServer Emulation Service

  • Clustered sessions and user statistics / allocations further enhanced to enable better management of clustered servers.
  • For subscription renewals, the Inventu Viewer Emulation Service will detect a refreshed license avoiding the need for a service restart/downtime. This will occur within an hour of using the FVLicense tool to refresh the subscription, or with a Console port command provided to customers in instructions for renewing a subscription.
  • A new timeout for SSH Logon implemented which defaults to 1 minute for each phase (userID then password) so that an idle session that was never connected will timeout faster to keep sessions available. Set in the Host Configuration in Tuning: SSH Timeout for UserID and Password Entry.
  • List Console port command now includes Most sessions/users and uptime statistics in the returned XML
  • SSH Handler code hardened to prevent exceptions during multi-threaded impacts of stopping an active SSH session.
  • 3270 IND$File transfer receives were mis-handling the Telnet 0xFF escape character if in the received file data leading to incorrect data buffers and invalid file contents. Examples would be an XLS excel file received in binary mode.
  • ASCII screen scrolling was further enhanced to support rapid buffer receives from the host when the new “Scroll Cleared Screen Lines” Profile setting is active. Without the enhancement, additional screens buffered during rapid user “page downs” would not be sent to the client successfully.
  • Logging of buffers containing telnet 0xFF escapes that are part of unknown handshake sequences are now logged in the data folder even if tracing is not active.
  • During a service stop/restart, a new Event Log entry has been added so that the Diagnostics Dashboard events analyzer can differentiate from a controlled service stop and a crash or other termination. This also will log the maximum session/user activity during the execution of the service.
  • A number of Event Log entries were elevated to Error from Warning to ensure better use during diagnostics
  • SSH disconnect could cause rare thread race on the socket thread.
  • For ASCII protocols VTxxx, SCO-ANSI, XTerm added support for UTF-8 line/box-drawing characters. Not a full UTF-8 Unicode support—only the simple line-drawing characters also supported by the VT100+ emulations.
  • For clustered servers new internal detection of issues with free and active sessions and users (for user-based licenses). Internal repair functions implemented to re-build free and active linked-lists.
  • For clustered servers additional multi-threading protection implemented to address rare cases when a heavily loaded server resulted in damaged free and active session lists.
  • New session logging added to assist in diagnosing session issues with heavily loaded clustered servers, as well as standard servers.
  • For clustered servers with user-based licensing, if a server in the cluster was down or on hold, another server in the cluster that was allocating new sessions on behalf of the down server would mis-count each session as a new user session so that new users would not be able to connect.
  • User based licensing was not clearing stopped sessions from a user’s internal list in certain situations, resulting in reduced maximum sessions per user.

Diagnostics Dashboard (NEW!)

  • Access from the TaskBar Notification Icon context menu
  • New Administration tool for identifying active issues with the current Viewer emulation service and FVTerm.
  • New high-level Event Log analysis and display tool
  • Can save active diagnostic files and event log to a zip file for sending to Inventu Support
  • Can save and import active configuration components for backing-up or copying to another server to replicate a configuration—also for sending to Inventu Support if requested.

FVTerm Web Terminal Emulation

  • ASCII connections can now have all screens scrolled along with TTY style scrolling. This provides a large scrolling area in the terminal screen matching functionality of desktop emulators like Putty.  This is configured in the Advanced section of the Profile following the Scroll History Maximum Lines setting using the “Scroll Cleared Screen Lines” checkbox.
  • Added new setting to control scrolling for ASCII terminals—enables users to control whether a screen clear is scrolled or not—scrolling must be active in the Profile setting.
  • Updated the FVHealth.aspx and BalanceInfo.aspx load balancing components to use the HostConnection.availableLicenses instead of HostConnection.availableSessions so that load balancing in a user-based licensing will accommodate at-capacity situations better.
  • When a DeviceID or LUName is configured, the user can now include a Telnet/TLS port to connect to with the syntax LUName:port (example: AB22ZAZ:20992). This is for environments where users are given both an LUName as well as a host port for connection details.  The message has been tweaked (in all languages) to reflect the optional port entry.
  • AzureAD HTTP cookies can expire resulting in a blank userid in a connection—this is now detected so that a new AzureAD context can be acquired during connection. Usually this will not require the user to re-enter credentials.
  • Added new exception handler for the TermStart web service to protect against hacking / stack test attacks.
  • Implemented a number of fixes identified by penetration testing to further harden the FVTerm web application.
  • A regression was fixed with 5250 screens where an uncommonly used color for the background of a character cell would cause escape sequences appearing in the HTML instead of the color change.
  • Initialization of the websocket handler sometimes raced with the flyserver.exe service leading to incorrectly allocated structures.
  • New Web Server Security setting – Strict User Checking which defaults false and when checked/true, will validate active user identity with any reconnection to a session. In version 6.0.60 this was always on which can lead to “false negatives” in some browser and cookie management environments.
  • Websockets additional internal diagnostics and error recovery
  • Added exception handling for an IIS cookie decryption error caused by a cookie created on one server in a cluster then accessed in the other server when the first server has no more sessions.

Viewer MMC Console

  • New User-based Licensing support—can now right-click on a Server (User View) or a Cluster (All Users List View) and view active users. The view is grouped by user with each user’s active sessions displayed under the user’s ID.  For the Cluster, all users across the servers in the cluster are shown in alphabetic order.  Sessions for a user can be viewed like any other session.

ViewerLib API

  • Added a new property to the HostScreen class object: scrollClearedLines to help assist in the server-side management of this new VT/ASCII terminal profile option. The first implementation performed scrolling of cleared screens at the client, which then lost rapid screen sends by the host.  When scrollClearedLines is set true for an active HostScreen object, scrolling is managed in the service as well as the client.
  • Added new HostConnection readonly property- availableLicenses which is to provide better management of clustered servers with concurrent user This is used by the FVHealth.aspx load balancer inquiry instead of availableSessions which leads to inaccurate counts to be used when a server hits capacity in user-based licensing.  The new availableLicenses will return the session count for standard session-based licenses and return the user count for user-based licenses.
  • Cleared internal structure used in a number of commands that had rare negative impacts on results in the FlyServer service

Viewer Administration Console

  • Added “Most Sessions/Users” and “Uptime” statistics to the upper-right information area. Most sessions will provide the most sessions (or Users for user-based licensing) that were active at any one time during the current execution of the service

Viewer Taskbar Notification Tray Icon

  • Installer was incorrectly setting-up auto-start for this icon—it will now correctly auto-start when the server is restarted.
  • Re-aligned some of the menu items for the context/right-click menu
  • Added new Diagnostics Dashboard which is described in its own category

Profiles Mode Configuration

  • Profile: For ASCII terminal types a new Advanced setting enabling all screen data to be scrolled during a session.  This is configured in the Advanced section of the Profile following the “Scroll History Maximum Lines” setting using the “Scroll Cleared Screen Lines” checkbox.  Note that this is only visible if the Scroll History Maximum Lines setting is non-Zero.
  • Host Setting: when it is an ASCII type and SSH is selected, “SSH Timeout for UserID and Password Entry” is new. This defaults to 60 seconds and applies to each step.  If a user leaves a screen and doesn’t enter either the UserID or Password within the set time, the session is closed and available for another user.

Filed Under: Admin, Web Terminal Emulation

Inventu Viewer+ Setups 2022C4

March 29, 2022 by ViewerAuthor

Assorted Fixes and Enhancements

Inventu Viewer+ Base Product and Components

(Version: 6.0.60 March 29, 2022)

https://software.inventu.com/2022C4?dl=IVSetup64.exe (64bit)

FlyServer Emulation Service

  • Session management improved to avoid issues with high-volume, rapid connections and disconnections– particularly improving clustered servers with SSH.
  • The TN5250 IBMi MNUBAR field type and drop-down is now supported, with proper highlighting, cursor styling and click support. This now makes this simulated drop-down menu option for the IBMi / AS400 platform more useable with mouse-only operation.
  • ASCII protocols like VT220 had columns for “normal” and “wide” hard-coded to 80 and 132. These settings will now utilize the Normal and Alternate columns and rows as defined in the configuration.  This allows applications that work best at “always” 132 columns to be setup that way—note 2022C3 had a regression for certain VT buffers resulting in the cursor positioning at row 1, column 1.
  • Custom ASCII keys processing that reads the c:\program files\inventu\viewer\definitions\terminfo.txt file had a bug in regards to the DELETE (“dch1”)  The dch1 was not processed, thus only the internal DELETE (0x7f) would ever be used regardless of the Terminfo definition.
  • TN5250 Device Printing would break if more than one print job is sent together. A header value differentiating a short header as a separator instead of the end of the full job was not being utilized.  Fixed in this build.
  • TN5250 Device printing had a 2 byte gap in the response buffer that could cause the IBMi Print Writer to stall if a telnet escape (0xFF) was randomly sent. Fixed in this build.
  • For the ASCII fpcwin terminal type, added support for delete and insert line protocol orders.
  • Admin Console passwords can now include special characters which in prior versions could break the sign-in process.

FVTerm Web Terminal Emulation

  • For localhost (on the server) FVTerm sessions, there is now a magnifying glass shown in the icon action bar to the far right. When this is clicked, the cursor on the emulation screen area is changed to a magnifying glass and can be positioned over any element on the screen.  When positioned, a status area will display the active terminal emulation class (like ST0) which then can be used in a CSS file to know which colors to change when wanting to customize a new or existing CSS file.
  • The AttrStyles.html page was tweaked to better support refreshing a both standard and non-standard CSS files as the CSS is changed while customizing colors.
  • Added ability to Clipboard-Paste multiple rows in an ASCII environment so that each row sends a Carriage Return…was sending a TAB.
  • The fvterm/cluster/BalanceInfo.aspx request was improved so that if a solitary server is involved the same information will be returned for available sessions.
  • The Delete key was hardcoded for VT/ASCII terminal types to ESC[3~ which works for some VT protocols but then cannot be changed at the server using TermInfo.txt for other protocols. Fixed to send a “delete” key, which is then translatable.
  • AzureAD internal code was not setting the correct value to work with multiple redirect URI values in the AzureAD Application definition. As a result, if more than one redirect URI was defined, Azure AD would always redirect to the last URI defined instead of the referrer of the signon request.
  • AzureAD timeouts on a user sign-in would cause the wrong message “No Sessions Available” when it was due to a missing userID when the license if for concurrent users. This message is fixed for other environments where user identity isn’t setup correctly and concurrent user license is in effect.  For AzureAD, it will now detect a blank userID and force another login so that users will see “Your AzureAD Signon or other Connection Status has Expired–Please Click Here to Re-Logon to AzureAD” (translated to user’s active language if not English).
  • For non-AzureAD servers that have a concurrent user license but a connection has not been identified (check the web server settings for identification)—the “No Sessions Available” will now instead display “’Connecting Requires User Identification and User Identification is missing…Please Close Browser and Try Logging In Again…” (translated to user’s active language).
  • File Transfer Icon was displaying for environments and protocols where it shouldn’t have. Workaround was to add the xferIcon to the hidden icon list in the View configuration but this version now will prevent the File transfer icon from displaying.
  • For users with TN3270 connections and a license including the IND$File transfer, the first click of the xferIcon would not work due to a timing issue loading backing javascript files. Now fixed.
  • Websocket handler in heavy ASCII loads and network packet drops could cause session switches between users. This was very rare and dependent on network and user actions.  User identification is now used to prevent the “switch”.  Other measures were also taken to avoid the switch occurring (two preventive measures implemented).
  • Additional logging for WebSockets implemented as additional diagnostics on how the session switches could occur.
  • File Transfer Icon was displaying when it shouldn’t (work-around was to Hide it using View settings).
  • Added optional logging of user session cookies when options are set to enable users to reconnect to an active/abandoned session.
  • Sometimes a user would get a timestamp attached during connection to a new session as displayed in the console for a session. This has been corrected.

InventuSSO Connection Framework

  • Added the ability to implement a credentials mapfile between the identity framework and host userID’s. This makes the host userID and optionally passwords something the user never sees.  For new implementations where existing identity can be mapped to new host userid/PW.
  • Added UserNameTrimChar to enable the removal of the @domain.ext if a user name is an email address and the credentials map file is indexed without the @domain.ext.
  • Recognition can now be relative to cursor location in screens, so that ASCII teletype style prompts can be easily recognized on any row or colum.

ViewerLib API

  • Connect was failing with a generic message (session not available) if the userID was missing and the active license is for concurrent users. Now has a warning that there is no active user identity.

Filed Under: Admin, Uncategorized, Web Terminal Emulation

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Flynet Viewer Now Inventu Viewer+

June 15, 2020 Inventu Corporation Renamed Inventu Flynet Viewer As Inventu Viewer+

(Click Here For Details)

On this Site, any reference to Flynet Viewer also applies to Inventu Viewer+

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