X3270 may give

Warning: Cannot convert string “-*-helvetica-bold-r-normal–14-*-100-100-p-*-iso8859-1” to type FontStruct

This is because some fonts are not available. On Ubuntu use the following commands

• sudo apt-get install xfonts-75dpi
• sudo apt-get install xfonts-100dpi
• xset +fp /usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/
• xset +fp /usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/
• xset fp rehash

Then reboot.

Most people are familiar with using SDSF from an ISPF screen to manage z/OS, and not from the operator console.  Ive been running z/OS under my laptop using zPDT, and Ive had to brush up my operating skills because I could not get the system up to be able to use ISPF and SDSF!

If you have problems and cannot get ISPF started you will need to use the operator console.
Use the MVS control command see here.

Hints for using the z/OS console.

If you issue a command to z/OS (for example D A,L) you get a display like

- 09.23.55 STC00406 VTAMAP98I 011 system command(s) issued.
- 09.23.55 STC00406 VTAMAP99I Execution completed.
- 09.23.55 STC00406 IEF404I VTAM00 - ENDED - TIME=09.23.55
- 09.24.26 IEF404I IEESYSAS - ENDED - TIME=09.24.26
09.24.26 HWI006I BCPII ADDRESS SPACE HAS ENDED.
- 09.25.32 STC00418 GFSC507I CLIENT LOG DATA SET, NFS.CLIENT.LOG1, IS
- BEING USED.
- 09.25.32 STC00418 GFSC284I NETWORK FILE SYSTEM CLIENT COULD NOT GET GSS
- CREDENTIALS
- FOR THE NFS CLIENT : GSS API krb5_get_default_realm() FAILED
- WITH GSS MAJOR STATUS 96C73ADF GSS MINOR STATUS 00000000
- 09.25.32 STC00418 GFSC700I z/OS NETWORK FILE SYSTEM CLIENT (HDZ223N)
- started. OA53881, GFSC4XLO, Sep 22 2017 14:49:23 .
- 09.27.24 d a,l

   CNZ4105I 09.27.24 DISPLAY ACTIVITY   FRAME LAST   F      E   SYS=S0W1     
    JOBS     M/S    TS USERS    SYSAS    INITS   ACTIVE/MAX VTAM     OAS        
   00005    00016    00000      00033    00016    00000/00040       00015       
    LLA      LLA      LLA      NSW  S  JES2     JES2     IEFPROC  NSW  S        
    VLF      VLF      VLF      NSW  S  HZR      HZR      IEFPROC  NSW  S        
    VTAM     VTAM     VTAM     NSW  S  DLF      DLF      DLF      NSW  S        
    RACF     RACF     RACF     NSW  S  RRS      RRS      RRS      NSW  S        
    TSO      TSO      STEP1    OWT  S  SDSF     SDSF     SDSF     NSW  S        
    TCPIP    TCPIP    TCPIP    NSW  SO TN3270   TN3270   TN3270   NSW  SO       
    HTTPD1   HTTPD1   *OMVSEX  OWT  SO CSF      CSF      CSF      NSW  S        
    HZSPROC  HZSPROC  HZSSTEP  NSW  SO HTTPD11  STEP1    WEBSRV   OWT  AO       
    PORTMAP  PORTMAP  PMAP     OWT  SO HTTPD17  STEP1    WEBSRV   IN   AO       
    SSHD3    STEP1    START1   OWT  AO HTTPD18  STEP1    WEBSRV   IN   AO       
    HTTPD19  STEP1    WEBSRV   OWT  AO                                          
  IEE612I CN=L700     DEVNUM=0700 SYS=S0W1                                      


  IEE163I MODE= R 

To clear scrollable messages in the top box use the K command. Action messages will remain.
To clear (and remove) the lower box, use the K E,D command.

To remove the action messages from the top box use K E,1,1 This deletes the top message.
If you get too many action messages, you will not see the scrollable messages, and so you will need to clear some of the action messages.
You can use the “K S,REF” command to configure how the console is configured, and what messages automatically scroll off the screen.

To make the screen so every things rolls, and you do not have the static status window,

• k e,d to clear the static window
• k a,none to remove the static window

I got this trying to start my z/VM system.

The books talk about editing and changing/etc/sysctl.conf.  I just changed my *.devmap and reduced the size of the memory in the

[system]
memory 3G

statements

I found it hard to find information about MQ events and what to do with them, so Ive documented my thoughts below.

Thanks to Gwydion and Morag for the many corrections!

MQ writes messages to system queues when specific activities occur, for example when a channel is made put(disabled) or a channel stops.  This allows you to have a program take these and take actions.

Ive categorised the actions into

• When
  • Now – for example queue full – needs to be actioned today(now!)
  • Tomorrow – for example a configuration error – raise a change ticket and get it fixed
• Who
  • Operations
  • System administrators – who define objects
  • Application programmers – responsible for application queues

Different queues are used depending on the event

Useful links

• List of events in the MQ V9 knowledge center
• List of event types in Queue manager events 

• Alias Base Queue Type Error
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who –  sysadmin
  • Action – fix the configuration problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  LOCALEV
• Bridge Started  IMS bridge
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – operations
  • Action – ignore
  • Switch – alter qmgr  BRIDGEEV
• Bridge Stopped
  • When – now
  • Who – operations
  • Action – check to see why it was stopped
  • Switch – alter qmgr  BRIDGEEV
• Change Authority Record
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action – check if this was made by and authorised person.  Keep a copy for audit purposes
  • Switch – alter qmgr CONFIGEV
• Change object
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action – check if this was made by and authorised person.  Keep a copy for audit purposes
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CONFIGEV
• Channel Activated
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – operations
  • Action – check if this was made by and authorised person.
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CHLEV
• Channel Auto-definition Error
  • When – now
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action –  determine why the definition failed
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CHADEV
• Channel Auto-definition OK
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action –  check to ensure this was expected
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CHADEV
• Channel Blocked
  • When – now
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action –  find out why this is blocked.  Is it  a new unexpected channel?
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CHLEV
• Channel Conversion Error
  • When – now
  • Who – application programmers and sys admins
  • Action – find out why the messages cannot be processed.  It may be an application error.   The sys admins may need to be involved to get information about the target queue
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CHLEV
• Channel Not Activated
  • When – now
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action –  find out what the problem is
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CHLEV
• Channel Not Available
  • When – now
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action –  find out what the problem is
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CHLEV
• Channel SSL Error
  • When – now
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action –  find out what the problem is
  • Switch – alter qmgr SSLEV
• Channel SSL Warning
  • When – now
  • Who – sys admins
  • Action –  find out what the problem is
  • Switch – alter qmgr SSLEV
• Channel Started
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – operations
  • Action –  none
  • Switch – alter qmgr CHLEV
• Channel Stopped
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – operations
  • Action – depends.  This could be expected or unexpected
  • Switch – alter qmgr CHLEV
• Channel Stopped By User
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – operations
  • Action – depends.  This could be expected or unexpected
  • Switch – alter qmgr CHLEV
• Command
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – review command issues.  Save the information for audit, or recreate purposes
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CMDEV
• Create object
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – review command issues.  Save the information for audit, or recreate purposes
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CONFIGEV
• Default Transmission Queue Type Error
  • When – now
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – fix the problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV
• Default Transmission Queue Usage Error
  • When – now
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – fix the problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV
• Delete Authority Record
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – review command issues.  Save the information for audit, or recreate purposes
  • Switch – alter qmgr CONFIGEV
• Delete object
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – review command issues.  Save the information for audit, or recreate purposes
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CONFIGEV
• Get Inhibited
  • When – now
  • Who –  programmers, sysadmins
  • Action – if application queue then programmers need to  determination why.  If system queue, determine why.
  • This could be caused by application finding major problem and want to stop future processing.
  • It may cause the queue and storage media to full up
  • Switch – alter qmgr INHIBITEV
• Logger
  • When – now
  • Who –   sysadmins
  • Action – determine why
  • Switch – alter qmgr LOGGEREV
• Not Authorized (type 1) On an MQCONN or system connection call, the user is not authorized to connect to the queue manager
  • When – now
  • Who –  sysadmins, programmers
  • Action –  review is this is lack of definition or someone trying to access a resource to which they are not authorised
  • Switch – alter qmgr  AUTHOREV
• Not Authorized (type 2)On an MQOPEN or MQPUT1 call, the user is not authorized to open the object for the options specified.
  • When – now
  • Who –  sysadmins, programmers
  • Action –  review is this is lack of definition or someone trying to access a resource to which they are not authorised
  • Switch – alter qmgr  AUTHOREV
• Not Authorized (type 3) When closing a queue using the MQCLOSE call, the user is not authorized to delete the object,
  • When – now
  • Who –  sysadmins, programmers
  • Action –  review is this is lack of definition or someone trying to access a resource to which they are not authorised
  • Switch – alter qmgr  AUTHOREV
• Not Authorized (type 4) Indicates that a command has been issued from a user ID that is not authorized to access the object specified in the command
  • When – now
  • Who –  sysadmins, programmers
  • Action –  review is this is lack of definition or someone trying to access a resource to which they are not authorised
  • Switch – alter qmgr  AUTHOREV
• Not Authorized (type 5) On an MQSUB call, the user is not authorized to subscribe to the specified topic.
  • When – now
  • Who –  sysadmins, programmers
  • Action –  review is this is lack of definition or someone trying to access a resource to which they are not authorised
  • Switch – alter qmgr  AUTHOREV
• Not Authorized (type 6) On an MQSUB call, the user is not authorized to use the destination queue with the required level of access
  • When – now
  • Who –  sysadmins, programmers
  • Action –  review is this is lack of definition or someone trying to access a resource to which they are not authorised
  • Switch – alter qmgr  AUTHOREV
• Put Inhibited
  • When – now
  • Who –  programmers, sysadmins
  • Action – if application queue then programmers need to  determination why.  If system queue, determine why.
  • This could be caused by application finding major problem and want to stop future processing.
  • It may cause problems with the applications trying to put to the queue.  They may “pause” and retry and cause an upstream blockage
  • Switch – alter qmgr INHIBITEV
• Queue Depth High
  • When – now
  • Who –  programmers, sysadmins
  • Action – if application queue then programmers need to  determination why.  If system queue, determine why.
  • This could be caused by application finding major problem and want to stop future processing.
  • Switch – alter qmgr PERFMEV
• Queue Depth Low
  • When – now
  • Who –  programmers, sysadmins
  • Action – monitor the queue depth and activity
  • Switch – alter qmgr PERFMEV
• Queue Full
  • When – now
  • Who –  programmers, sysadmins
  • Action – if application queue then programmers need to  determination why.  If system queue, determine why.
  • This could be caused by application finding major problem and want to stop future processing.
  • Switch – alter qmgr PERFMEV
• Queue Manager Active
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who –  operations
  • Action – for information
  • Switch – alter qmgr STRSTPEV
• Queue Manager Not Active
  • When – now
  • Who –  operations
  • Action – check if this queue manager should be shut down.  If not resolve the problems
  • Switch – alter qmgr STRSTPEV
• Queue Service Interval High
  • When – now
  • Who –  programmers, sysadmins
  • Action – if application queue then programmers need to  determination why.  If system queue, determine why.
  • Switch – alter qmgr PERFMEV
• Queue Service Interval OK
  • When – now
  • Who –  programmers, sysadmins
  • Action – monitor the queue
  • Switch – alter qmgr PERFMEV
• Queue Type Error
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who –   sysadmins
  • Action – fix the set up problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV
• Refresh Authority Record
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – review command issued.  Save the information for audit, or recreate purposes
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CONFIGEV
• Refresh object
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – review command issued.  Save the information for audit, or recreate purposes
  • Switch – alter qmgr  CONFIGEV
• Remote Queue Name Error
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – resolve definitions problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV
• Transmission Queue Type Error
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – resolve definitions problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV
• Transmission Queue Usage Error
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – resolve definitions problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV
• Unknown Alias Base Queue
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – resolve definitions problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  LOCALEV
• Unknown Default Transmission Queue
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – resolve definitions problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV
• Unknown Object Name
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – application, sysadmins
  • Action – determine why object was not defined.  Check for unauthorized attempts
  • Switch – alter qmgr  LOCALEV
• Unknown Remote Queue Manager
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – resolve definitions problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV
• Unknown Transmission Queue
  • When – tomorrow
  • Who – sysadmins
  • Action – resolve definitions problem
  • Switch – alter qmgr  REMOTEEV

Our neighbour’s son came up to me and said “I am a magician – look here is my trick”.   The trick was a good trick, but then I had to explain that being a magician is more than doing just one trick.

I thought of this as I was reviewing some old note books and found the comments I made about a customer visit, and the “MQ architect and lead MQ programmer”.
This architect knew about Request-Reply and Fire-and-Forget, but he was missing other tricks.

The conversation went along the following lines

Messages processed in strict sequence

Me: Do your messages have a requirement to be strictly processed in sequence?
Him:  I dont know, why?

Me:You can only have one putting application, one channel, and one application getting messages.  If you have more than any of these – you can get messages processed in the wrong order.

Availability and scalability

Me: What response time requirements do you have for the end-to-end transaction?

Him: under 5 seconds

Me: If the back end queue manager goes down, how long does it take to restart?
Him:About a minute

Me: So one backend will not provide the availability you need.

Him: But we use clustering!
Me: On how many queue managers is the queue defined on?

Him: One

Me: Do you use different clusters for online and batch traffic?
Him:Why?
Me: To isolate traffic, and ensure that batch does not impact online, either in channel throughput – or filling up the System.Cluster.Transmit.Queue.

and so it went on.

The defaults for many cluster channels are not very good.  For example the values for
CLWLPRTY,  CLWLRANK and CLWLWGHT are all 0, meaning the lowest priority.

If you want to make one connection or queue a lower priority, you have to alter all the cluster receiver channels, and local queues, to have a value  – such as 5, let the definitions propagate round the network, and then change the one you wanted!

It may be worth doing this over an extended period, so you get good values, without disrupting your MQ environment.