Local-alias usercodes are useful in situations such as the following:
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User A on system BLUE needs distributed systems services access to system YELLOW, but system YELLOW already has a user with usercode A.
In this case, two individuals on two systems have the same usercode, and one of them needs access to the other system. The local-alias feature enables you to preserve the usercode on the separate systems and enables the remote user use a local alias on the system the two users share.
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A group of users on a remote host are to be granted access to the local host and are to have the same access rights and common access to files on the local host.
In this case, it is not necessary to define a usercode for each user in the group. Instead, their usercodes from the remote host can all be assigned to a single alias usercode on the local host. Then you need to define only one usercode—the alias usercode—on the local host.
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An anonymous (nonusercoded) user from a remote host using TCP/IP File Transfer Protocol (FTP) wants to access files on the local host or transfer files between the local and remote hosts. You would define one local-alias usercode with the REMOTEUSER option *ANONYMOUSFTP.
An alias usercode without automatic log-on service is applied only to remote users of the host, not to users who perform station transfers to the host.
Local aliases take effect when files are copied from host to host and when processes are run on a host from a remote system.
Example
For example, consider again the remote user Tom Thompson of CHA15C, who was assigned the alias usercode WILLY on the local host, AS9. Suppose Thompson, while logged on to CHA15C, uses the following COPY statement to copy file FILEA to disk DISKA of AS9:
COPY FILEA TO DISKA(PACK,HOSTNAME=AS9)
File FILEA is copied as (WILLY)FILEA, under the directory of the alias usercode for THOMPSON on AS9. If Thompson wants to copy FILEA back from AS9, he must enter
COPY FILEA FROM DISKA(PACK,HOSTNAME=AS9)
The local-alias feature causes Thompson's requested file to be copied from the directory WILLY, Thompson's local alias, on AS9.
In the case of a station transfer, whatever usercode the user specifies during log-on at the remote host is also the usercode under which he or she runs on the local host.