Requirements

The IBM z/OS core collection requires both a control node and managed node be configured with a minimum set of requirements. The control node is often referred to as the controller and the managed node as the host.

Control node

The controller is where the Ansible engine that runs the playbook is installed. Refer to RedHat Ansible Certified Content documentation for more on the controllers dependencies.

Managed node

The managed z/OS node is the host that is managed by Ansible, as identified in the Ansible inventory. The managed node has dependencies that are specific to each release of the IBM z/OS core collection. Review the details of the dependencies before you proceed to install the IBM z/OS core collection.

  • IBM Open Enterprise Python for z/OS

  • z/OS V2R3 or later

  • IBM Z Open Automation Utilities (ZOAU)

    Note

    IBM z/OS core collection is dependent on specific versions of ZOAU. For information about the required version of ZOAU, review the release notes.

    Before attempting to run an Ansible playbook, please review the required environment parameters documented in our playbook repository under the playbook configuration topic. In addition to the playbook configuration, review our FAQs for additional help.

    There is an additional step for Z Open Automation Utilities 1.1.0 (ZOAU) over prior installations of ZOAU on the target z/OS. After you have configured IBM Open Enterprise Python on z/OS environment variables on the z/OS target and have installed ZOAU from a PAX archive or through SMPe, you will need to perform a PIP installation of the ZOAU Python libraries and ensure you have either exported or added these environment variables to your z/OS host .profile.

    Variables:

    export ZOAU_HOME=/usr/lpp/IBM/zoautil
    export PATH=${ZOAU_HOME}/bin:$PATH
    export LIBPATH=${ZOAU_HOME}/lib:${LIBPATH}

    PIP installation command:

    pip install zoautil_py-1.1.0.tar.gz.

    This will install the ZOAU Python libraries on the z/OS target for use by z/OS Ansible core and other collections.

    However, the Python installation may not have the the symbolic link for pip in which case you can use pip3 to install the libraries: | pip3 install zoautil_py-1.1.0.tar.gz.

    If the Python installation has not installed the wheel packaging standard and not updated the pip version to the latest, the warning messages can be ignored.

    Example output:

    Processing ./zoautil_py-1.1.0.tar.gz
    Using legacy setup.py install for zoautil-py, since package ‘wheel’ is not installed.
    Installing collected packages: zoautil-py
    Running setup.py install for zoautil-py … done
    Successfully installed zoautil-py-1.1.0
    WARNING: You are using pip version 20.1.1; however, version 20.2.4 is available.
    You should consider upgrading via the ‘<python_path>/pyz_3_8_2/usr/lpp/IBM/cyp/v3r8/pyz/bin/python3.8 -m pip install –upgrade pip’ command.

  • z/OS OpenSSH

  • The z/OS® shell

    Note

    Currently, only z/OS® shell is supported. Using ansible_shell_executable to change the default shell is discouraged. For more information, see Ansible documentation.

    Shells such as bash are not supported because they handle the reading and writing of untagged files differently. bash added enhanced ASCII support in version 4.3 and thus differs from 4.2. If bash shell is the only shell available, you must control how the new and existing files are tagged and encoded. This can be controlled by setting both “_ENCODE_FILE_NEW” and “_ENCODE_FILE_EXISTING”.

    For example,

    • _ENCODE_FILE_NEW: “IBM-1047”

    • _ENCODE_FILE_EXISTING: “IBM-1047”

    Please review the README.ZOS guide included with the ported bash shell for further configurations.

Python on z/OS

If the Ansible target is z/OS, you must install IBM Open Enterprise Python for z/OS which is ported for the z/OS platform and required by IBM z/OS core collection.

Installation

  • Visit the IBM Open Enterprise Python for z/OS product page for FMID, program directory, fix list, latest PTF, installation and configuration instructions.

  • For reference, the Program IDs are:

    • 5655-PYT for the base product

    • 5655-PYS for service and support

  • Optionally, download IBM Open Enterprise Python for z/OS, here

  • For the supported Python version, refer to the release notes.

Note

Currently, IBM Open Enterprise Python for z/OS is the supported and recommended Python distribution for use with Ansible and ZOAU. If Rocket Python is the only available Python on the target, review the recommended environment variables for Rocket Python.

ZOAU

IBM Z Open Automation Utilities provide support for executing automation tasks on z/OS. With ZOAU, you can run traditional MVS commands such as IEBCOPY, IDCAMS, and IKJEFT01, as well as perform a number of data set operations in the scripting language of your choice.

Installation

  • Visit the ZOAU product page for the FMID, program directory, fix list, latest PTF, installation, and configuration instructions.

  • For reference, the Program IDs are:

    • 5698-PA1 for the base product

    • 5698-PAS for service and support

  • For ZOAU supported version, refer to the release notes.