The SNA node on the host monitors the inbound session for a replacement sequence consisting of the 3270SSOPrefix string immediately followed by one of the strings 3270SSOUserTag or 3270SSOPwdTag. Thus, the default user name string that would be scanned for and replaced is MS$SAMEU. When this string is found in the inbound session data, the node looks up the corresponding information (host user name in the current host security domain) and overwrites MS$SAMEU with this information. The same process occurs for the password string that would be scanned for and replaced, which defaults to MS$SAMEP.
Note that this operation cannot change the length of the data message. If the actual user name or password that is retrieved from the current host security domain is shorter than the replacement sequence, it is padded out with the first character of the 3270SSOPadByte string used as a padding character. If the actual host user name or password string is longer than the string that is scanned for, these strings are truncated to the length of the scanned string so that the data message length is not affected.
The SNA node monitors the SSCP-LU session for these special tag strings at all times and replaces all occurrences of these strings with corresponding looked-up data. On the LU-LU session, the node starts monitoring at start of session (BIND). The node stops monitoring when it has received 3270SSOPostReplaceCount chains of RUs without seeing a substitution tag. The node will not restart monitoring until it receives an UNBIND–BIND sequence for that session.
Note that the node considers the sequence:
BIND, data, UNBIND(BIND FORTHCOMING), BIND …
as a continuation of the same LU-LU session and does not restart monitoring on receipt of the second BIND. This sequence is often used by host session managers handing off a session to an application subsystem, and is considered a single terminal session.
Note that all strings are specified in the registry in ASCII, but the node translates them to EBCDIC through AE character mapping before scanning for a match.