3.1 Getting Started in Windows

There are six basic steps to using AcuServer in a Windows environment.

1. Install AcuServer. If you have not already installed AcuServer on your Windows NT or Windows 2000 server, please refer to sections 3.2 and 3.3 of this chapter for a list of installation requirements and procedures. If AcuServer is already installed, then proceed to the next step. There is nothing on the AcuServer distribution media to install on the client machine. However, you should ensure that every client system that will use AcuServer has a licensed copy of an ACUCOBOL-GT runtime, Version 5.1 or later, and you may need to set up client passwords, user names and host names. This is described in section 3.7 Installing the Client.

2. Set up user and/or group accounts. Decide how users will access resources on the server machine (individual accounts or group accounts). Section 3.4 Setting Up Accounts shows the tradeoffs. Create the user accounts and grant user rights, including access to the server from the network.

3. Edit the AcuAccess file on the server. AcuServer will not start if the server access file cannot be found. This file is named "AcuAccess" and is located in "c:\etc\" by default. The ownerships and permissions on the server access file must be specified correctly. To modify the server access file, log onto a Windows NT or Windows 2000 server as Administrator or from an account that belongs to the Administrators group and type "acuserve -access" or use AcuServer's Windows-based graphical user interface as described in section 3.8.

If you choose to implement AcuServer system security, each record in the server access file should contain client machine name, client username, local username, and umask data, as described in section 6.2. Passwords may also be defined if desired.

If you choose to implement Windows NT security rather than AcuServer system security, the access records need only contain client machine, username, and if using the LOGON option, password data.

Either way, protect the server access file by allowing only the Administrator or someone in the Administrators group to have write access to it. If the access file does not exist, is not owned by Administrator or the Administrators group, or is writable by users other than Administrator or the Administrators group, AcuServer will not start.

4. Create or modify the directory structure that will be used by AcuServer clients. Ensure that user accounts have FULL CONTROL access to the directory containing the data and object files. If files already exist, modify the permissions for each file to give the users FULL CONTROL access.

5. Configure the AcuServer system. AcuServer system configuration consists of:

• assigning values to the runtime configuration variables. With the exception of the FILE_PREFIX and possibly CODE_PREFIX variables (discussed later in this chapter), none of the runtime configuration variables requires modification. For information about runtime configuration variables, see section 4.2.1 Runtime Configuration Variables.
• assigning values to the AcuServer configuration variables. None of the server configuration variables requires modification; however, you may want to modify them to gain control over or initiate certain functions like file locking, multi-record mode, error trace flushing, and more. If you want to implement Windows NT security rather than AcuServer system security, you must set the NT_SECURITY variable in both the runtime and server configuration files. For information about server configuration variables, see section 4.2.2 Server Configuration Variables.
• modifying your runtime configuration file or application code to use remote name notation. To use AcuServer, your applications must use remote name notation to refer to files located on the server. The ACUCOBOL-GT runtime looks for remote name notation to identify requests to AcuServer. On Windows NT/2000 servers, remote name notation has the format "@servername:drive-letter:\pathname". You may add a remote path to the FILE_PREFIX or CODE_PREFIX configuration variables. Alternatively, you can define file name aliases in the runtime configuration file. A file name alias is a string that will replace the literal name in the ASSIGN TO clause of a SELECT statement. For more information on remote name notation, please refer to section 7.2 Accessing Remote Files.

6. Issue AcuServer commands. AcuServer services are handled by the acuserve daemon running on the server. The acuserve command can be invoked from the command line to start and stop AcuServer (the acuserve daemon), retrieve AcuServer operation status, unlock stranded files, and create and maintain the server access file. Alternatively, in Windows environments, you can use AcuServer's graphical user interface program to issue file server commands. For details on the acuserve command, see Chapter 5. For details on using AcuServer's GUI, see section 3.8 Using AcuServer's Graphical User Interface for Windows.

Please be aware that configuration of AcuServer system security is very important to safeguarding your data files and network computers. We urge you to read the security information covered in Chapter 6 before placing AcuServer into open service.