ILEastic

It is a self contained web application server for the ILE environment on IBM i running microservices.

ILEastic is a service program that provides a simple, blazing fast programmable HTTP server for your application so you easy can plug your RPG code into a services infrastructure or make simple web applications without the need of any third party webserver products.

Basically it is a HTTP application server you can bind into your own ILE RPG projects, to give you a easy deploy mechanism, that fits into DevOps and microservices alike environments.

The self contained web application server makes it so much easier to develop web application.

Simply compile and submit. Yes - You don't need GCI, Apache, nginx or IceBreak - simply compile and submit.

The design paradigm is the same as found in Node.JS - so project was initially called node.RPG but the name was subject to some discussion, so ILEastic it is. Where Node.JS uses JavaScript, ILEastic aims for any ILE language where RPG are the most popular.

Except for initialization, It only requires two lines of code:

 il_listen ( config : pServletCallback); 
 il_responseWrite ( pResponse);

The il_listen are listening on the TCP/IP port and interface you define in the config structure. For each http request it will call your "servlet" which is a callback procedure that takes a request and a response parameter

The idea is that you deploy your (open source of cause) RPG packages at NPM so the RPG community can benefit from each others work. The NPM ecosystem is the same for Node.JS and ILEastic.

Example:

**FREE

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// This example runs a simple servlet using ILEastic
// Note: It requires your RPG code to be reentrant and compiled
// for multithreading. Each client request is handled by a seperate thread.
// Start it:
// SBMJOB CMD(CALL PGM(DEMO01)) JOB(ILEASTIC) JOBQ(QSYSNOMAX) ALWMLTTHD(*YES)        
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------     
ctl-opt copyright('Sitemule.com  (C), 2018');
ctl-opt decEdit('0,') datEdit(*YMD.) main(main);
ctl-opt debug(*yes) bndDir('ILEASTIC');
ctl-opt thread(*CONCURRENT);
/include include/ileastic.rpgle
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Main
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------     
dcl-proc main;

    dcl-ds config likeds(IL_CONFIG);

    config.port = 44001;
    config.host = '*ANY';

    il_listen (config : %paddr(myservlet));

end-proc;
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Servlet call back implementation
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------     
dcl-proc myservlet;

    dcl-pi *n;
        request  likeds(IL_REQUEST);
        response likeds(IL_RESPONSE);
    end-pi;
  
    il_responseWrite(response:'Hello world');

end-proc;

Installation

What you need before you start:

• IBM i 7.3 TR3 ( obove or alike)
• git and gmake ( 5733OPS or YUM)
• ILE C
• ILE RPG compiler

From a IBM i menu prompt start the SSH deamon:===> STRTCPSVR *SSHD Or start ssh from win/mac/linux

mkdir /prj
cd /prj 
git -c http.sslVerify=false clone https://github.com/sitemule/ILEastic.git
cd ILEastic
make 

Now you have library ILEastic on your IBM i - and you are good to go. You can simply copy the serivce program to you own projects libraries along with the bind-dir and headerfiles.

If you like to try the examples then you need to build them as well- as simple as:

cd examples 
make

Test it:

Log on to your IBM i. from a IBM i menu prompt

CALL QCMD
ADDLIBLE ILEASTIC
SBMJOB CMD(CALL PGM(helloworld)) ALWMLTTHD(*YES) JOB(helloworld) JOBQ(QSYSNOMAX) 
SBMJOB CMD(CALL PGM(staticfile)) ALWMLTTHD(*YES) JOB(staticfile) JOBQ(QSYSNOMAX) 

Look for the complete list in the examples folder - and observe which port they are "listening" at.

Now test it in a browser:

• http://myibmi:44000 Hello world
• http://myibmi:44001 Simple website demo

Please note that the job requires ALWMLTTHD(*YES)

Develop

You compile the project with gmake, and I have also included a setup folder for vsCode so you can compile any changes with Ctrl-Shift-B You need however to change .vsCode/task.json file to point to your IBM i address. The compile feature requires that you have SSH started: STRTCPSVR *SSHD

Unit Tests

For executing the unit tests located in the folder unittests you need to previously install either iRPGUnit or RPGUnit.

Moving on

So far we have implemented the basic features like il_listen , il_responseWrite and il_addRoute - look at the prototypes in ILEastic.rpgle header file for the complete list of features. There are still much work to do, however - all the plumbing around with git / compile / deploy are working. We at Sitemule.com are striving to move the core of the IceBreak server into the ILEastic project over the next couple of months. So stay tuned.

Note

This project was initially call Node.RPG, however people could not find the node.js code :) so obvously it was a bad name. Thanks for the feedback pointing me into a better direction.

Happy ILEastic coding