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Problem

A Forum reader recently asked:

"Is there a way to extend the attributes stored within a user profile on iSeries? I am starting deployment of this driver, but in the user profiles there are no fields for name, full name, etc. We have actually been adding descriptive information to the text field. Looking at the schema def installed with the i5os driver shim, where do I see these fields?"

Solution

There isn't any way to extend the available fields on i5os, but you should already have most anything you are likely to want.

User data on i5os is divided up between a User Profile and a Distribution Directory Entry. The User Profile has mostly fields associated with sign-on and job control. The Distribution Directory Entry contains everything else that you would want on a user like full name, address, telephone, email, etc. You can run DSPDIRE to see what entries currently exist. The Novell drivers create Distribution Directory Entries for users out of the box.

The i5os driver operations are carried out by Control Language programs. Novell ships the source code to these programs so that they can be customized by the customer. You can easily remove the sections that create and update the Distribution Directory Entries.

The driver is very extensible and eventually there will be additional documentation on how to extend to other applications on i5os. All you really need to customize the scripts is covered in section 6.4.2:
http://www.novell.com/documentation/idmdrivers/midrange/data/b3xywb2.html

The Control Language code is very simple and most i5os administrators have at least some familiarity with CL and can help with the modifications.

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.