HOW TO TRANSFER AN ENTIRE PDS FROM ONE SYSTEM TO ANOTHER WHEN THEY AREN'T DIRECTLY CONNECTED

Ran into this issue the other day:

I had a need to move a PDS from one mainframe to another and the two systems were not connected. I tried a simple FTP to my workstation then up to the other system, but the PDS members became malformed. A coworker suggested I XMIT (see this post if you need help on how to XMIT) the PDS to myself, FTP the XMITed PDS to my workstation, up to the target system, then unload it there.

I know that's a bit confusing so let's break this down:

1) XMIT the PDS from the source system to a new dataset on the source system. This will package the PDS into a format that can be transported. Let's say you called it (DSX)

2) FTP the packaged PDS from the source mainframe to your workstation (your PC, MAC, LCARS, whatever)

3) FTP the packaged PDS from your workstation to the target mainframe.

4) issue a RECEIVE INDS(dsx) command on the target system.


That should do it, hope it helps :-)

How to Get Rid of the Right-Hand Column of Numbers in the ISPF Editor

UNNUM will do the trick nicely :-)

2009 Master the Mainframe Contest!

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Notes on How to Create a RACF Database

First, here is a quick list of some of the RACF utilities and what they do:

IRRMIN00 RACF database initialization utility
IRRUT400 RACF database split/merge/extend utility
IRRDBU00 RACF database unload utility
IRRUT200 RACF database verification utility
IRRUT100 RACF cross-reference utility
IRRRID00 RACF remove ID utility
IRRADU00 RACF SMF data unload utility

To create a new RACF database, you're going to use IRRMIN00. Just whip up some JCL (check out 'z/OS Security Server RACF System Programmer's Guide' if nobody in your shop has some canned JCL you can cut and paste) and the utility will create a fresh database for you to use. Note that you have to reIPL before you can use this new database, as it is completely empty. At IPL time, a user entry for IBMUSER will be added so you can log in and start populating your new database.

After you've done this, there are two commands you probably want to issue against your new database. They are:

SETR GENERIC(DATASET)

and

SETR EGN

The first activates generic profile checking (see this post for a bit more on RACF profiles) and the second activates Enhanced Generic Naming. "When you activate this option, RACF allows you to specify the generic character ** (in addition to the generic characters * and %) when you define data set profile names and entries in the global access checking table. " (Security Server RACF Command Language Reference).

Some Random Goodies

I've picked up a few tricks I thought I'd share:

1) In a previous post I talk about sending messages and data sets to other users. The command requires you to know the node name of the system the recipient is on. You can find out what the node name is by going into SDSF and typing NODE on the command line.

2) From within SDSF, after you've run a job and you are reading the results, if you want to edit and or reissue the same JCL, you can do so from within SDSF. When you are looking at the job output, type SJ at the command field to access your job. From there you can edit and resubmit. Here are a few screen shots of what to put where:





3) Recalling migrated data sets can be a pain in the arse, especially when you need several of them to perform a particular task. If you want to recall a bunch of stuff at once, you can do so from within the ISPF data set listing (option 3.4) by typing HRECALL on the command field then = at every subsequent data set you want recalled. The equals sign tells ISPF that you want to repeat the previous command you've entered. Here's another screen shot that illustrates what I'm talking about.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Adding Users and Groups to the RACF Database

On occasion you may have the need to give a new user access to your system. As with anything else on the mainframe, there are about a million options but thankfully you really only need to concern yourself with a few of them. The first thing you need to understand is the concept of groups. RACF groups are a collection of users, grouped together to allow the system programmer (that's you!) an easy way to manage access lists. In other words, if you have 50 users that require access to a data set, rather than grant them access individually, you can put them in a group and give the group access to the data set. Cool, huh?

When creating a group, there are two attributes that you need to think about. They are

1) who the group owner is (can be another group)

2) whether or not this is a Unix System Services group (if it is, you may need to specify a GID)

It should be noted that it is not required that a group is created when a new user is added to the RACF database. Use the ADDGROUP command to add a RACF group. Here are a few examples from the RACF Security Administrator's Guide (ch 3, pg 59)

For example, to create a group for Department A called DEPTA whose owner and superior group is to be a group called ALLDEPT, enter:

ADDGROUP DEPTA OWNER(ALLDEPT) SUPGROUP(ALLDEPT)

To then connect users to that group, use the CONNECT command. For example, to connect department members SUE, LIZ, and GENE to the DEPTA group and also give LIZ and SUE authority to add new users to the group, enter:

CONNECT (SUE LIZ) GROUP(DEPTA) OWNER(DEPTA) AUTHORITY(CONNECT)

CONNECT GENE GROUP(DEPTA) OWNER(DEPTA)

If the group is to own group data sets create a top generic profile for the group data sets in the DATASET class. For example:

ADDSD ’DEPTA.**’ UACC(NONE)

If the group requires access to RACF-protected resources, give the group the required access using the PERMIT command. For example:

PERMIT ’RACF.PROTECT.DATA’ ID(DEPTA) ACCESS(READ)

If the group requires access to z/OS UNIX resources, alter the profile to include an OMVS segment with an z/OS UNIX group identifier (GID). For example:

ALTGROUP DEPTA OMVS(GID(100))

The next thing you need to dig is the concept of profiles. RACF is made up of profiles, and profiles are composed of segments. The base segment is composed of RACF specific stuff. Products also have segments in the profile. When you define a user to the RACF database, you also can define segments of that profile that specify what kind of access that user has to various products that are installed on the system. For example, when you define a new user to RACF, you may also want to define a TSO segment so TSO knows to use RACF (as opposed to its own UADS (User Attribute Dataset) dataset) to authenticate said user at login time. Use the ADDUSER command to add a user. Here are some things to remember when adding a new user:

1) Unless you specify a default password, the password for the new user will be the name of the group to which you add the user make sure you use a valid logon proc (IKJACCNT and ISPFPROC are good basic ones to start with)

2) You can apply the attributes SPECIAL, OPERATIONS, and AUDIT to a new user to give them access to protected system resources.
- SPECIAL does not automatically give the user access to data, but does give him/her the ability to grant him/herself permission to said data. Another way to look at the SPECIAL user is someone who has the ability to execute protected system commands.
- OPERATIONS has access to data, but not to protected system commands
- AUDIT gives the user the ability to view logs, and specify logging options

Here's more of the ADDUSER command, again from RACF Security Administrator's Guide (ch3 pg 92)

To create the user profile, you can use any of the following methods:

1) Issuing the ADDUSER command.
2) Enrolling the user through the TSO/E Information Center Facility (ICF) panels.

Here is an example of using the ADDUSER command to create a user profile. Suppose you want to create a user profile for user Steve H., a member of Department A. You want to assign the following values: STEVEH for the user ID DEPTA for the default connect group DEPTA for the owner of the STEVEH user profile R3I5VQX for the initial password Steve H. for the user’s name Steve H. does not require any of the user profile segments except TSO. The TSO segment values that you want to set to start with are 123456 for the account number and PROC01 for the logon procedure. To create a user profile with these values, enter:

ADDUSER STEVEH DFLTGRP(DEPTA) OWNER(DEPTA) NAME(’Steve H.’) PASSWORD(R315VQX) TSO(ACCTNUM(123456) PROC(PROC01))

You then want to create a top generic profile for the user in the DATASET class using the ADDSD command. For example, if the user’s user ID is STEVEH, enter:

ADDSD ’STEVEH.**’ UACC(NONE)

Well, that's about it. Note that you can use generic RACF profiles to protect more than one resource. This can be done with the use of the '*' wildcard (also known as the splat). Generic profiles saves you the trouble of having to create a unique profile for every little thing on the system. Last but not least, if you want RACF to protect all non-defined system resources, issue the command:

SETROPS PROTECTALL(FAIL)

What Does ABEND 414-04 Mean?

Ran into this one recently and I thought I'd share. Essentially, a volume can be set to READ ONLY. This is something outside the scope of any security product that might be running on the system, meaning you may have RACF permissions to a data set, but if the volume on which that data set resides is READ ONLY, you'll get the 414 abend. The solution is to get your system programmer to un-read only the volume so you can write to it.