Green Screens Server 4.2.2. Release

by Green Screens Ltd.

We just published technology update release for our Green Screens Server for IBM i. This is important release as we added some crucial updates and prerequisites for future releases. This version is even more stable and with better support for the latest IBM 7.4 release.

To see what's new in this release, check out below.

ACME Verification Protocol
Automated certificate providers based on ACME protocol requires special URL address to verify certificate. We added support for such URL's. This is the first step towards implementing automated Green Screens Server certificate registration to Let's Encrypt service which is coming in next 4.3 release. Only a couple weeks away.

FIDO2 Web Security
We updated WebAuthn FIDO2 based security to support latest features. Recent updates in modern browsers allowing to use MS Windows Hello Authenticator caused issues preventing authenticated keys listing in Green Screens web admin console.    

Licensing simplification
Green Screens Server use IBM i Licensing API. In previous versions we created a web UI within web admin console to install product definition and license keys in a form as generated by IBM i Licensing API.  In some situations that was problematic and confusing to the clients, so we simplified licensing mechanism which now receive a single base64 encoded special URL processed by Green Screen Server through automated licensing procedure.

Macro improvements
We improved automated screen macro execution engine by adding more control to definition language.

Mobile UI multilingual
Our Android mobile application is now multilingual with translations to 35 languages. Also, we made technology updates and code cleanup for more stability for future Android OS versions.

Protocol update for 5250
As of IBM i 7.2 release 5250 protocol has changed to support longer STRRMTCMD commands. We updated core system to support longer commands.

Security Certificates Improvement
We added better control over server certificate import features making process easier and more reliable. Now, import procedure will validate server certificate against root certificate, certificate expirations and few more validation matching criteria.

Silent installation and setup
For advanced usage, as mentioned web2desktop integrations, some browser plugins and extensions must be installed on user computer. For large organizations, we added more options for system admins to have a better support for silent install on large number of computers.

Web to Desktop integration
We dramatically improved web based terminal integration with desktop. Now, web terminal has a full support to use STRRMTCMD and to call local desktop programs directly from browser or JavaScript. More about new feature can be found here.

Web Terminal Dialogs
We improved web dialogs and keyboard integration for easier dialog cancelation and confirmation.

WebDav
WebDav is a web protocol allowing to use URL link as a shared remote disk. In this version we added some prerequisites for incoming v5 release which will have support for IFS WebDav,  ScreenUI WebDav, OUTQ WebDav and more. Incoming features will allow even better web terminal to file/document integration support.  

Other notable changes
Server v3.x.x updates was all about implementing modernization, bug fixes and stability.

Server v4.x.x updates are about better integration into cloud environments as VPN tunneling support, proxy and Sock5 support, increased security by implementing support for ECDSA certificates, procedure installation simplification and many more other small improvements.

Before jumping to v5 development which will be all about many new end user related usability integration features we still have a few 4.x releases to add a couple more cloud related features as mentioned Let's encrypt support.

List of all changes can be found here.