What's changed in IBM MQ 9.3.4

Before upgrading your queue managers to the latest product version, review these changes to functions and resources since IBM® MQ 9.3.3 and decide whether you must plan to make changes to existing applications, scripts, and procedures before starting to migrate your systems.

License entitlement

Change to nonprod entitlement option of setmqinst command

Administration

Changes to Security Policy attribute of the Service stanza of the qm.ini file
Changes to the way the CSQ1LOGP EXTRACT function handles messages with message properties
IBM Kafka Source and Sink Connector version upgraded
IBM Aspera faspio Gateway version upgraded
Changes to entries in the connection log for connections to MQIPT TLS server routes that close without sending any data

Change to nonprod entitlement option of setmqinst command

From IBM MQ 9.3.4, the nonprod option of the -l parameter of the setmqinst command sets the entitlement to IBM MQ (Non-Production) or IBM MQ Advanced (Non-Production), depending on whether the installation is IBM MQ Advanced or not. For more information about the setmqinst command, see setmqinst (set IBM MQ installation).

Changes to Security Policy attribute of the Service stanza of the qm.ini file

From IBM MQ 9.3.4, changes are made to the SecurityPolicy attribute of the Service stanza of the qm.ini file when the queue manager is configured to accept authentication tokens. To allow users that are not known to the queue manager to be used for authentication and authorization, the queue manager is put in UserExternal mode when the AuthToken stanza is added to the qm.ini file. This does not automatically happen if the SecurityPolicy attribute of the Service stanza of the qm.ini file is already set to group. If you want to use authentication tokens, change the setting from group to UserExternal and restart your queue manager. For more information, see SecurityPolicy and AuthToken stanza of the qm.ini file.

Changes to the way the CSQ1LOGP EXTRACT function handles messages with message properties

From IBM MQ 9.3.4, the CSQ1LOGP EXTRACT function is changed so that a message with message properties has the properties converted into MQRFH2 in the output record.

Attention:

The utility no longer produces MQPUTPRP records.
The CSQ1LOGP EXTRACT function requires thlqual.SCSQAUTH to be included in STEPLIB.

See The log print utility (CSQ1LOGP) for more information, and Service facilities codes (X'F1') for changes to the codes produced.

IBM Kafka Source and Sink Connector version upgraded

IBM MQ Advanced for z/OS®, IBM MQ Advanced for z/OS Value Unit Edition 9.3.4, IBM MQ Advanced for Multiplatforms 9.3.4, and IBM MQ Appliance 9.3.4 upgrade the version of the IBM provided Kafka Source and Sink Connectors from 1.3.2 to 2.0.

IBM Aspera faspio Gateway version upgraded

IBM MQ Advanced for z/OS Value Unit Edition 9.3.4 and IBM MQ Advanced for Multiplatforms 9.3.4 upgrade the version of the IBM Aspera® faspio Gateway to 1.3.3.

IBM Aspera faspio Gateway 1.3.3 implements a number of new features that might require you to adjust your workflow, configuration or usage. See Release Notes: IBM Aspera faspio Gateway 1.3.3 for details.

Also note the following breaking changes from earlier versions:

If you are migrating from IBM Aspera faspio Gateway 1.2, a license file is now required to run the gateway in server mode. See Release Notes: IBM Aspera faspio Gateway 1.3 for details. This license file is provided with IBM MQ. See Defining an Aspera gateway connection on Linux®, or Windows.
If you are migrating from IBM Aspera fasp.io Gateway 1.1 then, in addition to the license file change already described, there is also a changed directory structure and TLS is enabled by default. See Release Notes: IBM Aspera faspio Gateway 1.2 for details. For more information, see Defining an Aspera gateway connection on Linux, or Windows.

Changes to entries in the connection log for connections to MQIPT TLS server routes that close without sending any data

From IBM MQ 9.3.4, connections to IBM MQ Internet Pass-Thru (MQIPT) routes that close before any data is sent are not logged as errors. This change affects routes that are defined with SSLServer=true and SSLPlainConnections=false. In previous versions of MQIPT, connections to these routes that closed without sending any data caused an entry to be written to the connection log with an ERROR completion code and a SSLHandshakeException error message. From IBM MQ 9.3.4, the same connections cause a nodata entry to be written to the connection log, with an OK completion code. This change makes the connection log entries for connections that close before any data is sent consistent for all types of MQIPT routes.