When accessing the MCS Console a Security warning box appears indicating that the security certificate has expired.

Technical Note USA11268
Created 10-Nov-2004

Applies To
Management and Control Services 2.0.3

Management and Control Services 2.1

Management and Control Services 2.2

Management and Control Services 2.2.1

myEXTRA! Presentation Services 7.11

e-Vantage Host Access Server for UMC 3.2

Presentation Builder 3.0

myEXTRA! Smart Connectors for 3270 & 5350

myEXTRA! Smart Connectors for UTS & T27

myEXTRA! Smart Connectors for VT

EXTRA! Mainframe Server Edition 8

Terminal Viewers 3.11

Symptoms

When accessing the MCS Console a Security warning box appears indicating that the security certificate has expired.

Error: Warning - Security

Error: "Do you want to trust the signed applet distributed by Attachmate Corporation?".

Error: "The security certificate has expired or it not yet valid".

Error occurs when accessing MCS Admin console page.

Error occurs when accessing PBClient (myAccess) page

Error occurs when the Certificate cache in the Java Plug in has been cleared of all Attachmate certificates.

Cause

The code-signing certificate used to digitally sign all of the .jar files in MCS expired September 8th 2004.  This was unavoidable as a new code-signing certificate was not available until no earlier than August 7th 2004 (as per the renewal policy from Thawte).  The existing code-signing certificate was used with products developed no later than mid July of 2004 and it was not practical to delay the release for a month.  

After opening the MCS Console and logging on as System the security warning is displayed indicating the following:

The security certificate has expired or is not valid.

Fix

MCS will still function normally if users choose to trust the signed applet by clicking Yes or Always at the bottom of the security warning box.
Install a newer release of MCS 2.2.2 or MCS 3.0.  Both versions are signed with a digital certificate that expires September 8th 2006.