Navigator for i has a feature called Target Systems. This option is at the top of the list of available IBM i Management tasks. Target systems allow you to specify additional IBM i partitions that you want to manage, and change between those partitions without starting another Navigator session in another browser window or tab.
Target systems is most useful if you have an IBM i partition that you do not want to allow web access to. Accessing a system via Target Systems uses the host servers to access that partition. Thus, you only need to have the Web infrastructure set up on the partition that you initially sign on to. You don’t need the HTTP server running on the target system you want to manage.
When you select Target Systems, you get the following display. It shows you the systems that have been defined and allows you to add additional target systems.
When you take Add Target System, you specify the system you’d like to manage along with the user ID and password you will use to sign on to that target system.
A few key points when using Set Target System are:
- Set Target System allows the target system to be at any release, including 5.4. Thus, with this support, you can now manage an old 5.4 partition with Navigator for i. Not all functions will be available to you if you’re managing a 5.4 partition (for example, the performance tasks are only available on 6.1 or later), but many of the tasks are available on 5.4. (It needs to be said that if you still have partitions at 5.4, 6.1, or 7.1 you must have a plan to upgrade those partitions to a supported release!)
- This is only available when you initially use Navigator to sign on to a partition at a 7.x release.
To change the system you are managing, select the desired partiton and take the Set As Target System button. You’re user ID and password will be pre-filled, but you can override them if you need to.
At the top of the Navigator for I console, you will see the target system name. This is always there, and when you change the target system to another partition, this name will be updated to reflect the partition you are managing.
This blog post was edited for currency on February 1, 2020.
This blog post was originally published on IBMSystemsMag.com and is reproduced here by permission of IBM Systems Media.