Make gateway a server rather than client

[adelosa]

Hi there.. first, thanks for creating this project. Its a great tool for testing these types of payment systems. My question is in relation to the upstream host connection. As far as I can tell, the only connection mode supported for the upstream host seems to be with SocketQueue as a client and the host (assuming SmartVista or Openway) running as server. In my environment, our host connects to our system as a client so I would like to run the SocketQueue gateway as a server with the upstream host connecting as a client. Is this possible with the tool and if not, is it a major change to support such an upstream configuration?

[juks]

Hi!

Good challenge :-) Give me a day to figure out if I can implement it well with the current solution. Just curious: what kind of system is this?

[adelosa]

Thanks for responding so quickly.. We run HP NonStop hardware and Connex switch software. Its a pretty common card switch setup. The link setup varies by link generally and can be established by either end depending on the agreement of the parties.. I am looking to use your software to simulate the Connex host and send automated test messages to a downstream system that connects to Connex and uses ISO messages.

[juks]

Thanks for your remark. Seems it will sit on the current code structure, but likely somebody have to contribute into specific 8583 implementation after it is done.

[juks]

Please check "listen" branch: https://github.com/juks/SocketQueue/tree/listen Where you can use just --upstreamListenPort=port parameter without --upstreamHost parameter.

Keep in mind: only one upstream connection at a time for the moment. All concurrent connections will get dropped.

[adelosa]

Will have a play and let you know how I go.. thanks again!

[adelosa]

Hi Igor, I want to test this change in our environment, but at this point I'm having some issues with the message formats. At this point I have 2 challenges which I would be happy to assist with although Node is not a language I work with much..

message headers

Our link ISO messages have a fixed header that is added to each message after the message length. So in receiving a message, you should ignore the header and then process the remaining data as a standard iso8583 message. Responses also have the header attached. This should be a config option.

bitmap format

Process ISO bitmap as HEX characters rather than binary format. This should be a config option. Using the echo message as an example: Instead of a binary bitmap of 8 bytes (\xnn indicating binary values) '0800\x22\x20\x01\x00\x00\xc0\x00\x00000000060716170012345600000123456123567890124567' It would be a hex character bitmap of 16 bytes '08002220010000c00000000000060716170012345600000123456123567890124567'

Anyhow, let me know your thoughts on these enhancements and if its something that you would consider adding to the system as options.. as I said, I would like to help with this if I can.. If you give me some pointers I can have a go at coding it!

[juks]

Hi Anthony!

The static header option is controlled with --useStaticHeader option, e.g. --useStaticHeader=ISO001000017.

As for the bitmap, right now you can do your own 8583 fields syntax configuration, as there probably (or I would say definitely) will be other system specific format differences.

There is an example how it is done that you can find at the fork ,made by guys from Mexico: https://github.com/lentiummmx/SocketQueue/blob/master/lib/iso8583/lib/packager/originalProsaCH.js

'1': { length: 32, name: 'Bitmap', type: 'ban' },

This is quite common issue, so I will think of some proper and clear implementation for this option, like --overrideFormat. This will take some time.

[juks]

Seems to be done. Please pull the same branch.

Now there are overrides configuration option and "fixed-b-hex" type that represents the binary mask the way you have mentioned.

So you may do like this: --overrides=1:fixed-b-hex without the need to do your own format specification. This will tell the service to use fixed-b-hex format for the field 1 (binary mask).

[juks]

Merged into master