Installing and configuring the Zowe cross memory server (ZWESISTC)

The Zowe cross memory server provides privileged cross-memory services to the Zowe Desktop and runs as an APF-authorized program. The same cross memory server can be used by multiple Zowe desktops. You must install, configure, and launch the cross memory server if you want to use the Zowe desktop. Otherwise, you can skip this step.

To install and configure the cross memory server, you must create or edit APF-authorized load libraries, program properties table (PPT) entries, and a parmlib. This requires familiarity with z/OS.

The cross memory server runtime artifacts, the JCL for the started tasks, the parmlib, and members containing sample configuration commands are installed in the SZWESAMP PDS SAMPLIB. The load modules for the cross memory server and an auxiliary server it uses are installed in the SZWEAUTH PDS load library. The location of these for a convenience build depends on the value of the zowe-install.sh -h argument, see Install Zowe z/OS convenience build. For an SMP/E installation, the location is the value of $datasetPrefixIn in the member AZWE001.F1(ZWE3ALOC).

The cross memory server is a long running angel process server that runs under the started task ZWESISTC with the user ID ZWESIUSR and group of ZWEADMIN.

The ZWESISTC started task runs the load module ZWESIS01, serves the Zowe desktop that is running under the ZWESVSTC started task, and provides it with secure services that require elevated privileges, such as supervisor state, system key, or APF-authorization.

Under some situations in support of a Zowe extension, the cross memory server will start, control, and stop an auxiliary address space. This run as a ZWESASTC started task that runs the load module ZWESAUX. Under normal Zowe operation, you will not see any auxiliary address spaces started. However, if you have installed a vendor product running on top of Zowe, this may use the auxiliary service so it should be configured to be launchable.

To install the cross memory server, take the following steps either manually by using cp commands or use the supplied convenience script zowe-install-xmem.sh for an automated installation process.

Step 1: Copy the cross memory PROCLIB and load library

Copy cross memory data set members manually

1. Copy the load modules and add JCL to a PROCLIB:

   For the cross memory server to be started, its load modules need to be moved to an APF-authorized PDSE, and its JCL PROCLIB members moved to a PDS in the JES concatenation path.

   a. Load modules The cross memory server has two load modules, ZWESIS01 and ZWESAUX, provided in the PDS SZWEAUTH created during the installation of Zowe. To manually copy the files to a user-defined data set, you can issue the following commands:

   cp -X ZWESIS01 "//'<zwes_loadlib>(ZWESIS01)'"

   cp -X ZWESAUX "//'<zwes_loadlib>(ZWESAUX)'"

   Where <zwes_loadlib> is the name of the data set, for example ZWES.SISLOAD. The <zwes_loadlib> data set must be a PDSE due to language requirements.

   b. Proc libraries The cross memory server PROCLIB JCL is ZWESISTC and the auxiliary address space PROCLIB JCL is ZWESASTC.

   You must specify the <zwes_loadlib> data set where ZWESIS01 and ZWESAUX were copied to, in the STEPLIB DD statement of the two PROCLIB JCL members ZWESISTC and ZWESASTC respectively so that the appropriate version of the software is loaded correctly.

   Do not add the <zwes_loadlib> data set to the system LNKLST or LPALST concatenations.

2. Add a ZWESIP00 PARMLIB member for the ZWESISTC started task:

   When started, the ZWESISTC started task must find a valid ZWESIPxx PARMLIB member. The SZWESAMP PDS contains the member ZWESIP00 containing default configuration values. You can copy this member to your system PARMLIB data set, or allocate the default PDS data set ZWES.SISAMP that is specified in the ZWESISTC started task JCL.

Copy cross memory data set members automatically

Instead of the manual steps described above, a convenience script <ROOT_DIR>/scripts/utils/zowe-install-xmem.sh is shipped with Zowe to help with copying the cross memory and auxiliary address space PROCLIB members, the PARMLIB member, and the load libraries.

The script zowe-install-xmem.sh -d <dataSetPrefix> -b <loadlib> -a <parmlib> [-r <proclib> -l <log_directory>] has the following parameters:

• -d <dataSetPrefix> - Source PDS Prefix

  Data set prefix of the source PDS where .SZWESAMP(ZWESVSTC) was installed into.

  For an installation from a convenience build, this will be the value of zowe-install.sh -h when the build was installed. See Install Zowe z/OS convenience build

  For an SMP/E installation, this will be the value of $datasetPrefixIn in the member AZWE001.F1(ZWE3ALOC).

• -b <loadlib> - Target DSN Load Library

  This is the data set name of the PDSE where members ZWESIS01 and ZWESAUX will be copied into. This must be an APF-authorized PDS.

• -a <parmlib> - Target DSN for PARMLIB

  This is the data set name of where the PARMLIB ZWESIP00 will be placed.

• -r <proclib> - Target DSN for PROCLIB (optional)

  Target PROCLIB PDS where ZWESVSTC will be placed. If parameter is omitted the script scans the JES PROCLIB concatenation path and uses the first data set where the user has write access

• -l <log_directory> - Log directory (optional)

  Overrides the default log output directory of /global/zowe/logs, if it is writable, or ~/zowe/logs.

Example:

Executing the command zowe-install-xmem.sh -d MYUSERID.ZWE -b SYS1.IBM.ZIS.SZISLOAD -a SYS1.IBM.PARMLIB -r USER.PROCLIB copies:

• the load modules MYUSERID.ZWE.SZWEAUTH(ZWESIS01) and MYUSERID.ZWE.SZWEAUTH(ZWESAUX) to the load library SYS.IBM.ZIS.SZISLOAD
• the PARMLIB member MYUSERID.ZWE.SZWESAMP(ZWESIP00) to SYS1.IBM.PARMLIB(ZWESIP00)
• the PROCLIB member MYUSERID.ZWE.SZWESAMP(ZWESISTC) to USER.PROCLIB(ZWESISTC and MYUSERID.ZWE.SZWESAMP(ZWESASTC) to USER.PROCLIB(ZWESASTC)

The user ID ZWESIUSR that is assigned to the cross memory server started tasks must have a valid OMVS segment and read access to the data sets where the load library and PROCLIB are held. The cross memory server loads the modules to LPA for its PC-cp services.

Step 2: Add PPT entries to the system PARMLIB

The cross memory server and its auxiliary address spaces must run in key 4 and be non-swappable. For the server to start in this environment, add the following PPT entries for the server and address spaces to the SCHEDxx member of the system PARMLIB.

PPT PGMNAME(ZWESIS01) KEY(4) NOSWAP

PPT PGMNAME(ZWESAUX) KEY(4) NOSWAP

The PDS member SZWESAMP(ZWESISCH) contains the PPT lines for reference.

Then, issue the following command to make the SCHEDxx changes effective:

/SET SCH=xx

Step 3: Add the load libraries to the APF authorization list

Because the cross memory server provides privileges services, its load libraries require APF-authorization. To check whether a load library is APF-authorized, you can issue the following TSO command:

D PROG,APF,DSNAME=ZWES.SISLOAD

where the value of DSNAME is the name of the data set that contains the ZWESIS01 and ZWESAUX load modules.

To dynamically add a load library to the APF list if the load library is not SMS-managed, issue the following TSO command:

SETPROG APF,ADD,DSNAME=ZWES.SISLOAD,VOLUME=volser

If the load library is SMS-managed, issue the following TSO command:

SETPROG APF,ADD,DSNAME=ZWES.SISLOAD,SMS

where the value of DSNAME is the name of the data set that contains the ZWESIS01 and ZWESAUX load modules.

If you want to authorize the loadlib permanently, then add the following statement to SYS1.PARMLIB(PROGxx) or equivalent

The PDS member SZWESAMP(ZWESIMPRG) contains the SETPROG statement for reference.

Step 4: Configure SAF

The cross memory server performs a sequence of SAF checks to protect its services from unauthorized callers. To do this, it uses the FACILITY class and a ZWES.IS entry. Valid callers must have READ access to the ZWES.IS profile. Those callers include the STC user ZWESVUSR under which the ZWESVSTC started task runs. It is recommended that you also grant READ access to the STC user under which the ZWESASTC started task runs which is ZWESIUSR.

The commands required to configure SAF for the cross memory server are included in a JCL member ZWESECUR that is delivered with Zowe, see Configuring z/OS system

Step 5: Configure security environment switching

When responding to API requests, the Zowe desktop node API server running under USS must be able to change the security environment of its process to associate itself with the security context of the logged in user. This is called impersonation.

For commands required to configure impersonation, see Configuring the z/OS system for Zowe.

Starting and stopping the cross memory server on z/OS

The cross memory server is run as a started task from the JCL in the PROCLIB member ZWESISTC. It supports reusable address spaces and can be started through SDSF with the operator start command with the REUSASID=YES keyword:

/S ZWESISTC,REUSASID=YES

The ZWESISTC task starts and stops the ZWESSTC task as needed. Do not start the ZWESASTC task manually.

To end the Zowe cross memory server process, issue the operator stop command through SDSF:

/P ZWESISTC

Note:

The starting and stopping of the ZWESVSTC for the main Zowe servers is independent of the ZWESISTC cross memory server that is an angel process. If you are running more than one ZWESVSTC instance on the same LPAR, then these will be sharing the same ZWESISTC cross memory server. Stopping ZWESISTC will affect the behavior of all Zowe servers on the same LPAR that use the same cross-memory server name, for example ZWESIS_STD. The Zowe Cross Memory Server is designed to be a long-lived address space. There is no requirement to recycle regularly. When the cross-memory server is started with a new version of the ZWESIS01 load module, it abandons its current load module instance in LPA and loads the updated version.

To diagnose problems that may occur with the Zowe ZWESVSTC being able to attach to the ZWESISTC cross memory server, a log file zssServer-yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm.log is created in the instance directory /logs folder each time a Zowe ZWESVSTC instance is started. More details on diagnosing errors can be found in Zowe Application Framework issues.