Author: Colin Paice

Using ISMF and looking at volumes

The ISMF ISPF dialogs provide a good way of displaying information about SMS,volumes data sets etc.

Like many tools – it is easy once you know how to use it.

Where is there free disk space?

Using the ISMF dialogs (as a storage administrator)

                  ISMF PRIMARY OPTION MENU - z/OS DFSMS 3.1       
Selection or Command ===>                                         
                                                                  
                                                                  
0  ISMF Profile              - Specify ISMF User Profile          
1  Data Set                  - Perform Functions Against Data Sets
2  Volume                    - Perform Functions Against Volumes

Option 2 Volume –>, 1 for DASD

                          VOLUME SELECTION ENTRY PANEL              Page 1 of 3
 Command ===>                                                                  
                                                                               
 Select Source to Generate Volume List  . . 2  (1 - Saved list, 2 - New list)  
   1  Generate from a Saved List         Query Name To                         
        List Name  . . COLIN             Save or Retrieve                      
   2  Generate a New List from Criteria Below                                  
        Specify Source of the New List  . . 1  (1 - Physical, 2 - SMS)         
        Optionally Specify One or More:                                        
        Enter "/" to select option      Generate Exclusive list                
          Type of Volume List . . . 1          (1-Online,2-Not Online,3-Either)
          Volume Serial Number  . . USER*      (fully or partially specified)  
          Device Type . . . . . . .            (fully or partially specified)  
          Device Number . . . . . .            (fully specified)               
            To Device Number  . . .            (for range of devices)          
          Acquire Physical Data . . Y          (Y or N)                        
          Acquire Space Data  . . . Y          (Y or N)                        
          Storage Group Name  . . . *          (fully or partially specified)  
          CDS Name . . . . . . . 'ACTIVE'

Where Acquire Physical Data obtains

  • Device type such as 3390-3
  • Device number such as 0a94
  • Shared DASD such as YES
  • Use Attributes such as PRIV

and Acquire Space Data obtains and calculates

  • Free space
  • Free extents,
  • % Free index status
  • Allocated space
  • Free DSCBs
  • Fragmentation Index
  • Free VIRs (VTOC Index Records)
  • Largest extent
  • Physical status

gave

                                                           VOLUME LIST           
Command ===>                                                  Scroll ===> HALF   
                                                        Entries 1-8 of 8         
Enter Line Operators below:                             Data Columns 3-8 of 45   
                                                                                 
     LINE       VOLUME FREE       %     ALLOC      FRAG   LARGEST    FREE        
     OPERATOR   SERIAL SPACE      FREE  SPACE      INDEX  EXTENT     EXTENTS     
    ---(1)----  -(2)-- ---(3)---  (4)-  ---(5)---  -(6)-  ---(7)---  --(8)--     
                USER00    81233K     1   8233268K    674      6308K      135
                USER02   100822K     4   2670678K    252     53953K       31
                USER03     5202K     0   2766298K    483      2213K        9
                USER04  1457936K    53   1313564K     49   1328284K       20
                USER05    78577K     3   2692923K     83     63802K        4
                USER06   289020K    10   2482480K    179    105581K       16
                USER07   500735K    18   2270765K     92    356142K       11
                USER08   953881K    34   1817619K     86    509478K        3
    ----------  ------ -----------  BOTTOM  OF  DATA  -----------  ------  ----

If you press PF1 for help, press “enter to continue” and select option 6 Data Column Descriptions it gives all of the columns names. They have a name and number.

Back in the data display, you can scroll sideways to display these field.

You can use the command view 3,23 to display just those fields, or view * to display all of the fields.

You can use view save name and view select name to save the current view configuration as name.

I could not find a way of displaying all of the attributes for a volume in a vertical list.

Sort

You can say sort 3 to sort by column 3 ascending, or just sort where you can specify the columns and ascending or descending.

The columns you can sort by depend on what are displayed via the view command.

How difficult is it to delete a data set – it can be harder than you think.

I was using a volume on one zD&T system, and used the same volume on the next version of zD&T. Some of the datasets are SMS managed, and were cataloged in the first system’s master catalog.

Now I’m on the latest level of zD&T, I am trying to delete unwanted data sets, and this was a challenge, as all of the usual methods did not work.

I can use ISPF 3.4 and specify the volume USER05. There are some old datasets, such as SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001. These are not cataloged. They are only visible in ISPF 3.4 if you specify the volume. If you try to browse the data set it gives data set not cataloged.

I failed to delete the dataset using the usual techniques….

From ISPF

If you try to delete it from ISPF 3.4 it says “Data set not cataloged”,

From JCL

For example

//IBMDEL   JOB 1,MSGCLASS=H 
//TSO     EXEC PGM=IEFBR14 
//DDS      DD  DSN=SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001,VOL=SER=USER05, 
//             DISP=(OLD,DELETE) 
/*

This fails with the error message

IEFA107I IBMDEL TSO DDS – DATA SET SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001 NOT FOUND

From IDCAMS

//IBMDEL2  JOB 
//STEP1    EXEC  PGM=IDCAMS 
//DD1      DD    VOL=SER=USER05,UNIT=3390,DISP=OLD 
//*            DSN=SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00003 
//SYSPRINT DD    SYSOUT=A
//SYSIN   DD * 
     DELETE    - 
           SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001      - 
           FILE (DD1) - 
           PURGE 
/*

Fails with

IDC3012I ENTRY SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001 NOT FOUND
IDC3009I ** VSAM CATALOG RETURN CODE IS 8 – REASON CODE IS IGG0CLEG-42

The problem…

The dataset is on an SMS managed volume. All data sets managed by SMS have to be cataloged. The catalog that owns the dataset is on a non existant system – the old master catalog from the system from 3 years ago. The outcome is that there is no catalog available to locate the data set.

On the SMS volume USER05 is the SMS dataset SYS1.VVDS.VUSER05. This is like a catalog for the volume, and contains information about all the data sets on the SMS volume. You can use IDCAMS to print this data set (in hex).

The solution…

You need to recatalog it – then delete it

recatalog

//IBMRECAT JOB 
//RECATSMS EXEC PGM=IDCAMS 
//SYSPRINT DD   SYSOUT=* 
//SYSIN    DD   * 
  DEFINE NONVSAM(NAME(SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001   ) - 
    OWNER(COLIN ) - 
    VOLUMES(USER05)        - 
    DEVT(3390  )    - 
    RECATALOG) 
  LISTCAT ENT(SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001) ALL 
/*

This gave 

  DEFINE NONVSAM(NAME(SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001   ) -                                           
    OWNER(COLIN ) -                                                                           
    VOLUMES(USER05)        -                                                                  
    DEVT(3390  )    -                                                                         
    RECATALOG)                                                                                
IDC0001I FUNCTION COMPLETED, HIGHEST CONDITION CODE WAS 0                                             
                                                                                                      
  LISTCAT ENT(SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001) ALL                                                    
NONVSAM ------- SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001                                                               
     IN-CAT --- CATALOG.Z31B.MASTER                                                                   
     HISTORY                                                                                          
       DATASET-OWNER------COLIN     CREATION--------2025.296                                          
       RELEASE----------------2     EXPIRATION------0000.000                                          
       ACCOUNT-INFO-----------------------------------(NULL)                                          
     SMSDATA                                                                                          
       STORAGECLASS -----SCBASE     MANAGEMENTCLASS---(NULL)                                          
       DATACLASS --------(NULL)     LBACKUP ---0000.000.0000                                          
     ENCRYPTIONDATA                                                                                   
       DATA SET ENCRYPTION-----(NO)                                                                   
     VOLUMES                                                                                          
       VOLSER------------USER05     DEVTYPE------X'3010200F'     FSEQN------------------0             
     ASSOCIATIONS--------(NULL)                                                                       
     ATTRIBUTES

Having done this, I can now browse SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001 in ISPF without specifying a volume, so proving it is now cataloged.

Delete it

If I now try to delete it I get

IEC331I 050-088(,USER05),COLIN,ISPFPROC,VCMP,IGG0CLE4
IEC614I SCRATCH FAILED – RC 008, DIAGNOSTIC INFORMATION IS (040942D1),
ISPFPROC,USER05,SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001

The codes for IEC331I are given in IEC3009I. If you search for “code 50” then page down till you get code 88, it says

Explanation: A VVR or NVR with the correct component name was found, but the catalog name did not match. On a delete request, the BCS record will be deleted, but the VVR or NVR and the format 1 DSCB will not be scratched. There is no SFI data.

I had to use

//IBMDEL2  JOB 
//STEP1    EXEC  PGM=IDCAMS 
//DD1      DD    VOL=SER=USER05,UNIT=3390,DISP=OLD 
//SYSPRINT DD    SYSOUT=A 
//SYSIN   DD * 
  DELETE  SYS1.S0W1.Z24C.DMP00001    NVR FILE(DD1) 
/*

Which says delete the data set (and remove it from the VVDS dataset).
This job was successful, and the data set was no longer on the volume.

Sometimes I had to remove the NVR from the delete statement.
My overall JCL was 

//IBMDEL   JOB  1 
//E1 EXPORT SYMLIST=* 
// SET NAME='IZUSVR.JVM.IZUSVR1.D250809.T080903.X001' 
// SET VOL='USER06' 
//RECATSMS EXEC PGM=IDCAMS 
//DD1      DD    VOL=SER=&VOL,UNIT=3390,DISP=OLD 
//SYSPRINT DD   SYSOUT=* 
//SYSIN    DD   *,SYMBOLS=JCLONLY 
                                                                 
  DEFINE NONVSAM(NAME(&NAME.) - 
    OWNER(COLIN ) - 
    VOLUMES(&VOL.)        - 
    DEVT(3390  )    - 
    RECATALOG) 
                                                                 
  LISTCAT ENT(&NAME. ) ALL 

  DELETE  &NAME.                     NVR FILE(DD1) 

  DELETE  &NAME.                         FILE(DD1) 
/*

Whoops – where has my Firefox configuration gone? oh snap!

On Ubuntu Firefox now comes as a snap package.

Snaps are containerised software packages that are simple to create and install. They auto-update and are safe to run.

All that is true, but nowhere did it say that the Firefox configuration is now in a different place.

Before snaps, profile and configuration files were stored in the ~/.mozilla directory. Now they are stored in ~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox/

I had configured my backups to include useful directories including directories ~/.*, and had excluded all ~/snap directories because I could easily download the programs when needed (or so I thought).

I had a problem with Firefox so I deleted the snap files and reinstalled them – to find that my configuration information was not available, and was not backed up.

I’ve now moved to Vivaldi browser.

Lesson learned

I checked where the profiles for vivaldi are stored. They are under ~/snap as well.

Looking into what files are backed up, I had specified which directories I wanted. I think I’ll now say backup all files under my userid, except for….. I have a 2TB solid state external disk drive, so I should have plenty of space as I’ve only used 59 GB of backed up data.