As an alternative to defining connection details manually, you can enter the connection data from a file.
You can define information about the z/OS® host, DB2® database, and schema for the interdependency data in the Connections pane in the Preferences window. These details are saved in the file system so that, when the CICS® IA plug-in is stopped and restarted, the details do not have to be reentered each time.
Instead of manually defining the details on the Connection preferences page, you can enter the connection information for the CICS IA plug-in from a file. Use of the file might be useful, for example, if you want to create a version of the CICS IA plug-in that you can distribute to users with all the details about your host connectivity already entered, or if you want to easily switch between different databases.
To define the connection details externally you must create a .ini file that contains information about host and DB2 connectivity parameters, and change the configuration to read this file when the CICS IA plug-in is started.