RDU - Remote Development Utility V3

Remote Development Utility V3
(rdu3/rduwin)

The Jargon Software Remote Development Utility Version 3 (rdu3/rduwin) gives you an easy way to do a variety of common development tasks. The rdu3 client app has small screens for use on PDA devices such as the Pocket PC, while rduwin has larger screens for use on a PC. The functionality is identical, only the screen component sizes are different. In this document, all references to rdu3.ini and rdu3.xml apply to rduwin.ini and rduwin.xml as well.

From RDU, you can:

Browse files and directories on the server where the RDU host programs are installed.
Create directories on the server.
Create, update, append, move, copy, rename, view or delete files on the server.
Enter non-interactive Progress statements and run them on the server.
Enter text and save as a new or existing file on the server.
Run OS command files or scripts on the server.
View output from compiling and running Progress statements, running operating system commands, and other actions, in a scrollable window.
Enter HTTP requests to retrieve document files or run host procedures.
View the host response to HTTP requests in a scrolling textarea or in a web browser (Windows PC only).
Compile individual Progress programs or groups of programs on the server.
Create HTML web page documentation for a database schema.
View selected schema information for server databases, in several formats.
Administer a local ODBC database (such as an Oracle Lite database).
View server information such as Progress session values, web server environment variables, and operating system environment variables.
Get WebSpeed, AppServer and Tunnel Broker status information.

This is especially useful when working with remote Windows servers over the Internet, where you do not have direct access to a Windows session and typically have no telnet capability.

Installation.

Install the RDU programs like any other Version 3 application. The xml and ini files are in the xml\Progress\util directory within your Jargon Writer directory. The Progress programs are included in zip and tar files in the Progress\nt and Progress\unix directories.

Login.

The first time you run RDU, select a new password and enter it on the RDU Login window, then click "Submit". If this is the first time RDU has been run, the password will be encrypted and stored in a text file named "rdu_pw.txt" in the working directory of your WebSpeed or AppServer broker. After the first time, any password entered is encrypted and compared to this stored value. If you forget or want to change the password, simply remove the rdu_pw.txt file. For security reasons, you should not have this working directory accessible to web browsers over your internal network or the Internet.

If your web server has SSL support and you want to run RDU in a secure sockets layer (SSL) mode, check the "Use SSL" checkbox before logging in.

Menu.

The menu has buttons for each of the above described features. Click a button to open the selected window. All windows provide a "Menu" button to return to this window. To end RDU, click "Exit".

Browse Files.

In the "Browse Server Files" window, you can view any directory and its contents on the server which is running the host programs for RDU, or on any other server whose directories are mapped onto it. As you view directories, they are saved in the "Hist" combobox so you can easily select one to return to at any time. This combobox also lists all drives existing on a Windows server.

In the "Files Matching" textfield, you can optionally enter a wildcard match value, using asterisk ("*") for any zero or more characters, and question mark ("?") for any one character. So for example to see all files ending with a single character suffix such as all ".p" and ".r" files, you could enter "*.?" as a match value.

The "Show Sub-Dirs" checkbox determines whether both directories and files are listed, or only files.

Click "Show Dir. Contents" to show the selected contents of the directory specified at the top.

Click on a subdirectory in the list and click "Select" to view the contents of that subdirectory.

Click on a file in the list and click "Select" to open the "File Actions" window with that file name and directory filled in.

Click on a file or directory and click "Info" to see the detail attributes of the selected file or directory. Click "Back" to return.

File Actions

From the "File Actions" window, select old/new directory and file names as needed for the desired action, select the action in the combobox and click "Submit".

For View, Save, Compile, Delete, OSCmd and Run actions, only an existing directory and file name are needed.

For Append, Copy, Move and Rename actions, both an old and new set of directory and file names must be entered, and cannot be identical.

For CreateDir, only a new directory name is needed.

To Save a file that already exists, check the "Overwrite" box, otherwise an error message will be displayed and the save will not be done.

To delete a directory AND all its contents and subdirectories, check "Recursive". Otherwise only individual files or empty directories can be deleted. A confirmation screen is used for all deletes as well.

All OSCmd actions redirect their output to the file specified in the "Log File" textfield. To view this log, select the log file from the Browse window and View it here.

All actions will be confimed by a message or other output displayed in the "View Host Data" window. After viewing the output, you can Clear it if desired, then click "Back" to return to the File Actions window. You can also click "Log" at any time to display the "View Host Data" window again without doing any action, such as looking again at the output from the previous action if you did not clear the host data.

HTTP Requests

On the HTTP Requests window, you can enter the URL of a web server document file or you can construct a host request URL to run a Progress or other procedure on a server. The response from the host can be viewed in the "View Host Data" window in this program by clicking "Submit Request", or it can be submitted from and viewed in your default web browser (on Windows PCs only) by clicking "View in Web Brower".

For formatting host requests, enter the HostURL in the URL textfield, the middleware script value in the "Script" textfield, the program relative pathname in the "Program" textfield, the internal procedure name (for Jargon Software calls to Progress programs) in the "Procedure" textfield, and any other name/value pairs in the "Params" textarea, with one "name=value" entry on each line.

Click "Defaults" to clear all fields and fill in the URL and Script from the HostURL and Script parameters of the RDU ini file.

Progress Editor

From the "Enter/Run Progress Stmts" window, you can enter any non-interactive Progress statements and then save them into a text file on the server (by clicking "Save") or by running them and viewing the output (by clicking "Run"). Note that you cannot use input statements like "PROMPT-FOR", "SET" or "UPDATE" unless you have redirected input to a file or socket etc. There is no user interface displayed for the statements being run, it is basically restricted to "batch" programs only.

Server Information

From the "Server Info." window, you can check any or all of the three checkboxes to view Progress, Web and O/S information from the server, or any other environment variables that you wish to get the values of. (Enter the latter in the textfield, delimited by spaces if you enter more than one variable name). Click "Submit" to view the values in the "View Host Data" window.

Server Status

From the "Server Status" window, you can run the "status" or "statuswin" utility to request Progress WebSpeed, Progress AppServer, Jargon Software Tunnel Broker, Microsoft ASP, or other middleware status and configuration information from the server.

The status client app has small screens for use on PDA devices such as the Pocket PC, while statuswin has larger screens for use on a PC. The functionality is identical, only the screen component sizes are different.

The default "Host" and "Script" parameter values (from your ".ini" file) are displayed, and can be modified if necessary to check other hosts or middleware.

If your middleware is Progress Software's WebSpeed, verify that the Script value contains the correct WebSpeed broker name, then select "WebSpeed Status" or "WebSpeed (Verbose)" from the combobox, and click "Get Status". This will run the Progress "status.p" program (which must be in the WebSpeed PROPATH).

If your middleware is Progress Software's AppServer combined with Jargon Software's Tunnel Broker, verify that the Script value contains the correct Tunnel Broker broker name, then select "Tunnel Broker Config" or "AppServer Status" from the combobox, and click "Get Status". (The broker name is not required for the Tunnel Broker Config). The Tunnel Broker Config queries the jsihttp.dll (Windows only) for the contents of the jsihttp.ini file. The AppServer Status runs the "util/statusas.p" program.

If you are using Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) on a Windows server with IIS, verify that the Script value contains the correct path to the "status.asp" procedure, then select "ASP Status" and click "Get Status". This runs the status.asp procedure, which also requires the Jargon "jsi.asp" include file. Both are supplied in the "asp" subdirectory in your Jargon Writer install directory.

If you are using other middleware that has a status utility, enter the complete script path including the procedure name and any parameters in the Script value, then select "Other Status" and click "Get Status". The response will be displayed verbatim in the response area (with HTML tags stripped out).

Compiling

From the "Compiling" window you can compile one or groups of Progress programs. See the Compiling Strategies for Progress 4GL document.

Server DB

From the "Server DB" window, you can run the "dbutil" or "dbwin" utility to create documentation for server-based Progress database schemas and to view selected database information in a report or interactive format. See the Schema Reporting Tools for Progress 4GL document.

The dbutil client app has small screens for use on PDA devices such as the Pocket PC, while dbwin has larger screens for use on a PC. The functionality is identical, only the screen component sizes are different.

Local DB

From the "Local DB" window, you can run the "odbcutil" or "odbcwin" utility to administer a local ODBC database, such as an Oracle Lite database. See the ODBC Database Utility (odbcutil/odbcwin) document.

This utility allows you to connect to an existing database, view table metaschemas and data contents, get table statistics, modify field values, perform filtered table searches, and run any DDL or DML SQL statements, including adding schema and data to the database.

The odbcutil client app has small screens for use on PDA devices such as the Pocket PC, while odbcwin has larger screens for use on a PC. The functionality is identical, only the screen component sizes are different.

Misc Tools

From the "Miscellaneous Tools" window, you can view and/or set the values of standard and special preferences (name/value pairs) from the "ini" file that was used to load RDU. Select any of the standard preference values such as "HostURL" from the combobox to see its value, or enter the name of any special one and click "Get Value" to see the value of the special preference, if it has been defined. If not defined, an empty value will be displayed. Enter a new value and click "Set Value" to create or update a preference value.

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