To Edit the Authorization File (optional)
If your COBOL application requires access to resources on the user's machine or local network, then your user must edit the plug-in authorization file, "acuauth.txt," to allow access to local directories. (We recommend designing your application so that this is not necessary. Using AcuServer and/or AcuConnect, you can design your application to utilize remote application and data resources.)
When the user first installs the plug-in, the installation program creates a default "acuauth.txt" file and places it in the "plugins" directory on the client machine, (i.e. the directory containing "NPacu32.dll"). This default file contains one line that specifies a list of directories where COBOL programs may create or delete files and subdirectories. The directories are specified as a sequence of space delimited pathnames.
Initially, "acuauth.txt" contains only the path to the "PlgnData" directory in the main Acucorp product directory on your hard disk (created during installation). By default, if you install the plug-in as part of the ACUCOBOL-GT Development Suite, the file would contain the following line:
c:\acucobol42\acugt\plgndata
This allows applications that create local temporary files to work immediately.
If your COBOL application requires access to other directories or disks on the user's machine, the user must add those directories to the "acuauth.txt" file. For example, if the application requires access to the client directory, "c:\myfiles", then the user would add "c:\myfiles" to the end of the first line in the "acuauth.txt" file as follows:
c:\acucobol42\acugt\plgndata c:\myfiles
By editing the "acuauth.txt" file, end users can designate which directories on the client machine may be made accessible to plug-in applications. Applications executed by the plug-in are allowed to read and write data in these directories, as well as create and delete subdirectories. No other area of the user's local or network file system will be accessible to the COBOL programs executed by the plug-in. This provides some measure of protection for the end user's machine and network.
If the "acuauth.txt" file is empty or missing when the plug-in is invoked, the COBOL application is denied access to the local machine's file system.
See Also
