January 2009
Newsletter

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IOF Release 8D provides significant enhancements to the product including new interfaces to email, FTP and the Unix file system.  The new release supports all versions of z/OS through z/OS V1R13 when the latest maintenance is applied.   8D may run but has not been tested with OS/390.

Send Output from IOF via Email or FTP

There are many requirements to send JES2 job output to end users via email or FTP.  These include:  

• the need to notify one or more users via email when a critical job or systems task fails.
• the need to provide detailed information about how a job failed.
• the convenience of sending batch output to a user via email.
• the need to send a copy of a job to a PC via FTP or email for archival.

IOF release 8D provides a simple mechanism for using email to notify a user of a job's completion and to optionally attach reports from the job. The notification can be unconditional or dependent on the success or failure of the job. You can also select reports to be emailed directly from IOF display screens.

 Jobs, Output Groups or individual sysout data sets can be mailed to email recipients.  The new SEND command is used to select output to be sent from a terminal session.  The new IOFSEND procedure can be used in a batch job to send all or parts of the job via email or FTP.

This facility can be extremely useful to on-call staff who most likely keep email active while on-call at home, but do not necessarily maintain an active TSO session.  When important jobs fail, users can be notified via email with return code or abend code.  In addition, the IOF Job Summary and all or selected sysout data sets can be attached to the email.

This facility was originally implemented with optional fixes described in the September 2007 IOF Newsletter.  It is incorporated as a standard feature of Release 8D.  Read the newsletter for a complete description of the IOF send capabilities.  Note that the XMITIP available from Lionel Dyck is required in order to email output.  XMITIP is not required to send output via FTP however.

Snap to z/OS Unix File

Release 8D adds the ability to SNAP job output directly to a z/OS Unix file.  The new "SU" command is used to specify the Unix file.  Normal SNAP commands are then used to copy job output to the defined Unix file.  Enter SU with no parameters to display the Snap to z/OS Unix File panel.

------------------------- IOF Snap to z/OS Unix File -------------------------
 COMMAND ===> 


 PATH        ===> /u/spgr177/

 FILE        ===> TESTJOB.IOFLIST 

 OVERWRITE   ===> Yes           OK to write into existing file (Yes/No)

 APPEND      ===> No            Append snapped data to end of file (Yes/No)

 MODE        ===> SIRWXU        File access attributes

 FILEDATA    ===> Text          Data format (Text/Binary)

 RECFM       ===> V             Record format (F or V)
 LRECL       ===> 255           Logical record length
 CC          ===> A             Carriage control (A/M/None)


    Set defaults for this panel by entering "P" on the IOF Option Menu.
                

Use Option "P.4" to define default values for fields on this panel.

Additional Output Attributes

 The following additional output characteristics can now be modified on the Output Group Display and can be set as default sysout characteristics for snap to sysout:

   AFPPARMS  AFPSTATS  DUPLEX  PRTATTRS  RESFMT 

    MAILBCC  MAILCC  MAILFROM  MAILTO  REPLYTO  USERPATH

SORT Enhancements

IOF displays many numeric fields in condensed format in order to display very large fields in a limited space. For example, numbers less then 10,000 are displayed numerically, 10,000 through 999,999  are displayed as nnnK, and numbers greater than one million are displayed as nnnM.  Condensed fields do not sort in the order users would expect.  Release 8D has been changed to sort condensed fields on the underlying numeric field to produce what users expect to see.

Browse Enhancements

The DISPLAY CC command is used to cause IOF browse to display carriage control characters. Release 8D has been changed to save the DISPLAY CC setting in the user's profile for use on  subsequent browse sessions. Enter DISPLAY CC or DISPLAY NOCC to change the carriage control display setting.

 The FINDALLcommand now supports 10 million occurrences and one billion lines and/or pages.

LOG Enhancements

IOF can now remember the screen position when a user exits browse  of SYSLOG or OPERLOG, and reposition to that same screen when the  LOG command is subsequently entered in that same IOF session. This new option is selected by entering P on the IOF Option Menu and then selecting Option 1. Set LOGREPOS to YES to select this option.

The LOCATE command within LOG can now position to the nearest second. Enter "LOC hhmmss"or "LOC hh:mm:ss" to position to seconds. The old "LOC hhmm" continues to locate to the nearest minute.

The limit of 32k index entries has been removed

The IOF SLAMRUN and SLAMOPER clists are used to build indices to SYSLOG and OPERLOG.  Indices improve LOG performance and allow location to each minute of the day.  Special indices are built to important log messages.  The indices can be displayed by entering INDEX when browsing the log.

Release 8D has added the capability to use the resident log index in the SLAMRUN or SLAMOPER job, eliminating the requirement for the LOG command  to allocate and read the log index.  Resident index significantly improves LOG command performance, especially on large systems.

Several conditions must be met in order for the resident index to be used:

• SLAMRUN and SLAMOPER tasks must use the 8D version of the IOF CLIST library.
• SLAMRUN and/or SLAMOPER tasks must be run on the same LPAR as the TSO user.  Users on other LPARs will continue to read the log index as in previous releases.
• TSO users must run IOF release 8D.  Users running other IOF releases can access the index built by the 8D SLAMRUN or SLAMOPER task but can not use the resident index.

Note that the 8D version of SLAMRUN and SLAMOPER clists will not run with older releases of IOF.

SYSID Command Changes

The SYSID command now sets either a running jobs sysid filter, or LOG sysid filter depending on where it is entered.

When the Running Jobs section of the Job List Menu is displayed at the top of the screen, SYSID ssss sets the running jobs filter so that only jobs running on sysid ssss will be displayed.

When browsing SYSLOG , SYSID ssss sets the LOG sysid filter as in previous releases and immediately displays the SYSLOG for system ssss.

When SYSID is entered on any other panel a prompt panel is displayed asking which SYSID filter should be set.

The specified SYSID value is saved in the profile.

New Management Features

SETIOF Options Assist Command

The IOF OPTIONS partitioned data set contains numerous options members that contain parameters used to tailor the way IOF runs at a site.  Finding the option member where a specific parameter is defined can be difficult for a new IOF installation programmer unfamiliar with the generation process.  The new SETIOF command simplifies this process significantly.  Options members are segregated according to likelihood that the member will need to be changed locally.  The "Options Display Panel" lists,  for each member name, the last local change date, a brief description of the option, and an abbreviated display of the current settings.

---------------------IOF Options Display ----------------------- Row 1 of 13
 COMMAND ===>                                               Scroll ===> CSR 

    S or E  - Edit member         V  = View member                     More
                                                                   Scroll Right
 ---Option--Change Date-Ac-Description-----------------Current Value---------
  _ A10AUTH  1997/03/07    SVC number for IOF          SVC=200
  _ A40SCOPE 1997/08/28    Default jobs displayed      OWNER,'/U'
  _ A50EXPIR 2007/08/08    Expiration date password    REP 00 8585,FFFC,D29A,CDEF
  _ A60ACF   2006/05/24    Security system usage       RACF,IBMSAF=YES,OPER=ALL,
  _ A70FLOW  1999/05/15    Option menu or user's jobs  SETFLOW INITCMD=INITCMD
  _ B23ALLOW 2007/08/07    User groups and privileges  7 GROUP macros
  _ B23$DOC                B23ALLOW documentation      Documentation
  _ B30SLAM  2003/08/25    System log indexing         INDEX=YES,SYSID=YES,MEMOJ
  _ B32INDEX               System log Index data set   PREFIX=SYSIOF,SUFFIX=IOFI
  _ B48RESET               Options Menu parm reset     SETRESET YES
  _ B49CMPAT 2007/08/08    SDSF compatibility          MVSCHAR=POUND,JUMP=/,PCMD
  _ B62CONDS               "CONDENSE" browse option    SETCONDS NO
  _ B67SERV  2007/05/17    Sysplex support (AT cmd)    9 SERVER macros
                                

The most commonly changed options are shown above.  When the member has never been changed locally the change date field is left blank.  Note the brief description of each member, followed by an abbreviated display of the current settings. 

Members can be browsed or edited from this panel.  Each option member contains a verbose description of the parameters that can be set in that member.  The SETIOF Options Display panel makes it easier for users to find the option member needed to make changes in the way IOF runs at a site.

See the October 2007 Newsletter for a more complete description of SETIOF.

Controlling the MORE Command

The commands displayed by the MORE command can be controlled by the new DOCLEVL parm on the B23ALLOW GROUP macro.

         DOCLEVL=ENDUSER    Shows only end user MORE commands 

         DOCLEVL=OPERATOR   Shows end user and operator commands 

         DOCLEVL=ADMIN      Shows all commands 

                

Release 8D Availability

IOF Release 8D was officially released on September 28, 2009.  The release date was delayed slightly in order to provide support for z/OS V1R11.