From the Home ribbon tab, choose Setup from the Communication tab group. To modify any of the connection settings here, you must first disconnect the session using the Connect/Disconnect button.


The Connection Setup screen provides the following options, which will vary depending on the emulation type:

General

Host Type
This is a read only property, which displays the type of host for the current session and is SCOANSI Display for a VAX/VMS/Unix/Linux connection using the SCOANSI operating mode.

Host Name/IP
Enter the IP Address or fully qualified host name for the host system to connect to.

Host Port
Enter the TCP listening port for the host.

Auto Reconnect
When enabled, Flex Terminal Emulator will attempt to reconnect the session if it is timed out, is unexpectedly disconnected, or if the host is unavailable when the initial connection is attempted.

Time Out (seconds)
Number of seconds to wait for the host connection to be established. If a successful connection is not made within this time period and Auto Reconnect is disabled, a Timed Out message will display. Otherwise, if Auto Reconnect is enabled, Flex Terminal Emulator will retry the connection attempt


If there are alternate host names or IP Addresses configured in the Hot Backup List, then an attempt to connect to those will be made after the time out value has been reached.


Terminal ID

The terminal type exchanged during telnet negotiation is automatically set based on the selected Operating Mode. This property provides a way for the user to override the automatic setting with a different value.


Host Encoding

The translation tables used to convert text characters between the host and the local PC, where the default is IBM 437.


National Replacement Charset

The National Replacement Character sets provide character sets for many European languages. The default value is United States.


Data Bits

Specify the number of bits used for each character. Default value of 8-bit is common for most hosts.

Emulation

Screen Size

Lines
Sets the number of lines to display on the screen, where the valid range is 24 to 144.


Columns
Sets the number of columns to display on the screen, where the valid range is 80 to 132.

Security

Encryption
By default set to None. When Implicit or Explicit SSL/TLS is enabled, the connection between Flex Terminal Emulator and the host is encrypted using SSL or TLS. When SSH is selected, Secure Shell is used to encrypt the session.  Select Explicit to negotiate Transport Layer Security (TLS) through Telnet. Otherwise, select Implicit to request SSL/TLS immediately without Telnet negotiation.


Normally, Implicit SSL/TLS is sufficient for most environments where SSL/TLS is configured on the host for a specific TCP port. Otherwise, if the host is configured with both secure and non-secure on a single port, Explicit should be used.

SSL/TLS

SSL/TLS Protocol

Specify the SSL/TLS protocol to use for encryption, where Default will negotiate the highest level available on the host system. If a specific protocol is required, choose from the list. Note that SSL 3 and lower are considered obsolete due to vulnerabilities and should not be used unless required by the host.

Server Authentication

Accepted Certificates

Determines which certificate types to accept:


Self-Signed

Enable to accept a self-signed server certificate that was not acquired through a certificate authority. (These are common in test environments.)


Expired

Enable to accept a server certificate that has expired.


Not Yet Valid

Enable to accept a server certificate that has a future starting date.


Invalid

Enable to accept a server certificate that is invalid for any reason other than the date or signature. With this option enabled, Flex Terminal Emulator will not check the validity of the server certificate.


Name Mismatch

Enable to accept certificates where the name provided when the certificate was created does not match the host name. Host names may be either an IP address or a fully qualified DNS name.


Not Accepted Action

Determines how Flex Terminal Emulator will respond to any items above that are disabled. Items above that are enabled will ignore this option and allow the certificate.


Choose one of the following actions:

    • Ignore and Connect
    • Prompt
    • Do Not Connect
Client Authentication

Enable

When enabled, a client certificate will be used to establish an encrypted connection with the host. A local certificate must be specified in order to use this option.


Client Certificate

Select the certificate to use for client authentication from the list of installed certificates. Certificates must be imported to the Microsoft Windows "Personal" Certificate Store before they are available to use with Flex Terminal Emulator.

SSH

Username

Specify a username to use for logging into the SSH server. If not specified, the user is prompted for the SSH username to use.


Password

Specify a password to use for logging into the SSH server. If not specified, the user is prompted for the SSH password to use.


Prompt host key fingerprint

Enable to display a dialog containing the host key fingerprint for host identity confirmation. Disable to suppress the dialog. Enabled by default.

Protocol Options

Compression Level

Choose compression level if supported by the server. Disabled (fastest) and 9 means best compression (slowest). This only affects outgoing data.


Encryption Algorithms

Choose the group of allowed encryption algorithms.


Host Key Algorithms

Choose the group of allowed host key (server key) algorithms.


Key Exchange Algorithms

Choose the group of allowed key exchange algorithms.


Mac Algorithms

Choose the group of allowed message authentication code algorithms.


Min Diffie Hellman Key Size (bits)

Minimum allowed size of the ephemeral Diffie-Hellman prime. Valid range is 512 to 16384, where 1024 is the default value.


Min RSA Key Size (bits)

Minimum allowed size of the RSA key. Valid range is 512 to 16384, where 1024 is the default value.

Private Key Authentication

Enable

Enable use of private key for authentication.


Private Key File

Enter the full path and name of the private key file to use for authentication.


Private Key Password

If required, enter the password for the specified private key file.

HLLAPI

Automatic Selection
When enabled, the HLLAPI Short Name and Long Name is automatically assigned by Flex Terminal Emulator. The first session started will be assigned the Short Name of A, while the Long Name will be SessionA. Opening additional sessions will continue to assign HLLAPI Short and Long Names using B, C, etc. Otherwise, disable to assign a specific HLLAPI Short Name.


Short Name
Disable the Automatic Selection to manually assign a Short Name using a single alpha, numeric, or special character. HLLAPI applications use the short name to identify the specific Flex Terminal Emulator session to communicate with.


Long Name
Disable the Automatic Selection to manually assign a Long Name using a string of up to 8 alphanumeric characters.

Advanced

Hot Backup List
Allows alternate IP host names and TCP ports to be specified, in the event the primary connection attempt fails. Press the + button to add an item to the list, which will prompt to enter the Host Name/IP and Host Port (port defaults to 23). Press the - button to remove an item from the list.


Enable Scroll Back Buffer

Activates the history log which stores lines of host data that are no longer displayed on the live host screen. Use the scroll bar on the right side of the Flex Terminal Emulator window or the scroll wheel on the mouse to view previous host screens.


Scroll Back Buffer Size (lines)

Enter an integer between 24 and 100,000, where 256 is the default.


Keep Alive Sequence

Enable to send a periodic timing signal to the host to ensure that the connection is not idle long enough to be terminated. Choose between two timing signal options:


  • NOP
    Periodically sends a No Operation command to the host.
  • Timing Mark
    Periodically sends a Timing Mark command to the host.


Keep Alive Timeout (min)
This value specifies the interval at which Flex Terminal Emulator will send a timing signal. The default is 15 minutes, but may be any value between 1 minute and 1440 minutes (1 day).


Note: The Keep Alive Timeout value should be set to a value that is less than what the host is configured to terminate idle sessions. For example, if sessions are disconnected by the host after 10 minutes of idle time, the timeout value in Flex Terminal Emulator should be set to 9 minutes or less.


Clear Screen Buffer On Disconnect

Enable to clear the screen when the session is disconnected. If the session times out due to inactivity, or is otherwise disconnected by the host or due to a network related issue, the session will also be set to a disconnected state. Otherwise, when disabled, the text from the most recent host screen is displayed and the user must manually disconnect the session before reconnecting.

Miscellaneous

Before-Connect Action

Automatically execute any of the available actions before an attempt is made to connect to the host. This action is not executed for auto-reconnects.


The following Flex Terminal Emulator commands are not available as a before-connect action, as they could cause undesired results, or are not applicable:


  • CommunicationConnect
  • CommunicationTrace
  • EditCut
  • EditCopy
  • EditPaste
  • EditPasteContinue
  • EditSelectAll
  • FileCloseSession
  • FileExit


On-Connect Action

Automatically execute any of the available actions after a host connection is successfully established.


The following Flex Terminal Emulator commands are not available as a before-connect action, as they could cause undesired results, or are not applicable:


  • CommunicationConnect
  • CommunicationTrace
  • EditCut
  • EditCopy
  • EditPaste
  • EditPasteContinue
  • EditSelectAll
  • FileCloseSession
  • FileExit

Run When Reconnecting

Enable to allow the On-Connect Action to execute even when the session has been disconnected by the host and reconnected. The Auto Reconnect option must be enabled to utilize this option. If disabled, the On-Connect Action will only execute when the initial connection is made.


On-Disconnect Action

Automatically execute any of the available actions after disconnecting the session.


The following Flex Terminal Emulator commands are not available as an on-disconnect action, as they could cause undesired results, or are not applicable:


  • CommunicationConnect
  • CommunicationTrace
  • EditCut
  • EditCopy
  • EditPaste
  • EditPasteContinue
  • EditSelectAll
  • FileCloseSession
  • FileExit
  • MacroPlay
  • TransferFile