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Use

External aliases are used to make it possible to call services using any appropriate non-technical name.

External aliases can have the form /name1/name2/... and can point to any service in the ICF service tree, such as /SAP/mySAPdotcom/ping as an external alias to the ping service. Unlike internal aliases, external aliases may contain slashes ("/").

Apart from this, an external alias is handled in the same way as an internal alias: If the string of the external alias is found in the inbound request, the service assigned to this alias is called (or the HTTP request handler defined in this service). The service data of the external alias overrides the data in the target service.

Note

The names are not case-sensitive.

Note

An inbound URL is first checked against the external aliases, then against the internal aliases.

Activities

Creating an External Alias

To create an external alias in the SICF service hierarchy, proceed as follows:

  1. Call transaction SICF.

  2. On the start screen, choose External Aliases.

    Note

    If you have your own namespace, we recommend that you create a node with the same name as the namespace at the top level of the HTTP service hierarchy, and create all your aliases or services under this node.

  3. Now select a host in the hierarchy that you want to be the root node of the new alias, and choose Create New External Alias (or right-click and choose Create External Alias).

  4. Enter a name and a description for your external alias.

  5. Choose an alias to an existing service.

  6. Enter data under Service Data and Error Pages as described in Creating a Service.

  7. Choose Target Element.

  8. Select the required target service in the tree structure.

  9. Save your data by choosing .

  10. Check that the service is active.

Transporting External Aliases

To transport an external alias, proceed as follows:

  1. Position the cursor on the external alias and choose (or choose Start of the navigation path External Alias Next navigation step Transport End of the navigation path.

  2. The system then displays a dialog box, and you can enter the transport key.

    Note

    If you choose /test*, for example, then all external aliases that begin with /test are transported.

  3. Specify a transport request.