IP*Works! EDI gisbsender Component : gisbsender OCX, gisbsender .NET Component, gisbsender Class, gisbsender Bean, gisbsender Object

Available in: EDI/AS2

GISBSender Component [IP*Works! EDI V8]

Properties Methods Events Configuration Settings

The GISBSender component implements an GISB / EDM client.

NOTE: What follows is a very short description of the component interfaces. For more information, please consult the help files that come with the respective package.

Remarks

The GISBSender component is used to send EDI or other documents using the GISB (Gas Industry Standards Board) / NAESB (North American Energy Standards Board) EDM (Electronic Delivery Mechanism) protocol.

When sending an EDI message, the client should specify, at a minimum, DataFrom, DataTo, URL, EDIData, and EDIType. The Post method should then be invoked.

Basic Features: GISB Versions 1.4 and above

Security is provided via the use of PGP. If you want to sign and/or encrypt your message set the SignData and EncryptData properties to true. The component does not itself implement PGP, instead it uses a The IPWorksGISB component does not by itself implement PGP, instead it uses the provider pattern to interface with external cryptography libraries. A PGP provider is a simple module that allows the component to offload PGP operations to the PGP software of your choice. The interface is designed to be generic in its ability to include various PGP software and is limited to only the bare minimum capabilities required for a GISB message exchange. We include a PGP provider implementation for GnuPG which may be used as a reference to implement other providers.

A PGP provider is simply a class called "IPWorksGISBPGPProvider" that should have the following methods. The component uses reflection to access the methods of the provider.

public void SetParam(string name, string value); public byte[] Encrypt(byte[] data); public byte[] Decrypt(byte[] data); public byte[] Sign(byte[] data); public bool VerifySignature(byte[] signature, byte[] signedData);

The SetParam method is used to specify the parameters required by the PGP provider to perform the PGP operation. Although the parameters needed may vary in different providers, we expect the following set to be necessary. The reference GnuPG provider interprets the following parameters.


1 (homedir)	The directory containing the public keyring, secret keyring and trust database. Please note this defaults to the application preferences directory of the user, hence if the GNUPG provider is being used from a ASP.NET application, homedir should be specified.
3 (passphrase)	The passphrase to access the secret keys in the secret-keyring.
4 (userid)	The identifier used to identify a secret key within the secret-keyring.
5 (recipient-userid)	The identifier used to identify a public key within the public keyring.

The component expects the encryption to return an ASCII armored output and the signing to compute a detached signature.

Note: GnuPG is the Free Software Foundation's implementation of OpenPGP. It is free software and is recommended by NAESB (in version 1.6 of the EDM specification) for use in GISB/NAESB applications.

GnuPG is not included with this package, so you should download the latest version from http://www.gnupg.org. You might use GnuPG (or other software) to import your trading partners' public keys, and to import or generate a private key for yourself. These operations are outside the scope of this software, so please see the GnuPG documentation for details. to allow you to process the PGP data with a library of your choice.

SSL will also be used if the scheme in URL is "https". In case your trading partner is using a self-signed certificate you may set SSLAcceptServerCert or trap the SSLServerAuthentication event to accept the certificate.

After you Post the server will issue a brief reply. If the server indicates some sort of an error an exception will be thrown. However, the absence of an error message does not necessarily mean that the server was able to read the EDI data. The server may attempt to process the data after closing the connection; if it finds an error it might send a separate error notification which may be processed by the GISBReceiver component.

Extended Security Options: NAESB Version 1.6

Version 1.6 of the NAESB/GISB protocol includes extensions to allow additional security. Like the AS2 protocol, version 1.6 allows for the use of receipts.

To request a receipt, set the ReceiptTo property. The ReceiptType and ReceiptSecurity properties may be used to customize the receipt request; by default, the component will request a GISB-Acknowledgement-Receipt signed over an SHA-1 hash. The receipt will be returned in the HTTP reply, and will automatically be verified by the component.

Property List

The following is the full list of the properties of the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


Cookies	Collection of cookies.
DataElements	Collection of extra data elements for the outgoing request.
DataFrom	The identity of the sending system.
DataTo	The identity of the receiving system.
EDIData	The EDI or other data to be sent.
EDIFile	The name of the file containing the EDI or other data to be sent.
EDIType	The type of the data to be sent.
EncryptData	Whether or not to encrypt the data.
Firewall	A set of properties related to firewall access.
GISBVersion	The version of GISB/NAESB being used.
LocalHost	The name of the local host or user-assigned IP interface through which connections are initiated or accepted.
LogDirectory	The path to a directory for logging.
LogFile	The log file written.
PGPProvider	The PGP provider provides an interface to the PGP cryptography software.
Proxy	A set of properties related to proxy access.
ReceiptSecurity	[1.6] Used to indicate the security options requested for the receipt.
ReceiptSigningProtocol	[1.6] Indicates the protocol used to sign the receipt.
ReceiptTo	[1.6] Used to request a receipt.
ReceiptType	[1.6] The type of receipt requested.
ReplyHeaders	The HTTP headers provided for the Response .
RequestStatus	The status of the request.
ResponseContent	The response returned from the server.
SignData	Whether or not to sign the data.
SSLAcceptServerCert	Instructs the component to unconditionally accept the server certificate that matches the supplied certificate.
SSLCert	The certificate to be used during ssl negotiation.
SSLServerCert	The server certificate for the last established connection.
Subject	The subject of the message.
Timeout	A timeout for the component.
TransactionId	The transaction ID of the message.
URL	The URL to post to.
UserAgent	Information about the user agent.

Method List

The following is the full list of the methods of the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


Config	Sets or retrieves a configuration setting.
DoEvents	Processes events from the internal message queue.
Post	Post data to the server, and check the receipt.
Reset	Resets the state of the control.
SetPGPParam	Sets a parameter in the PGP provider.

Event List

The following is the full list of the events fired by the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


Connected	Fired immediately after a connection completes (or fails).
Disconnected	Fired when a connection is closed.
EndTransfer	Fired when a document finishes transferring.
Error	Information about errors during data delivery.
Header	Fired every time a header line comes in.
SetCookie	Fired for every cookie set by the server.
SSLServerAuthentication	Fired after the server presents its certificate to the client.
SSLStatus	Shows the progress of the secure connection.
StartTransfer	Fired when a document starts transferring (after the headers).
Transfer	Fired while a document transfers (delivers document).

Configuration Settings

The following is a list of configuration settings for the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


CodePage	The system code page used for Unicode to Multibyte translations (Windows/COM only).