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ColinPaice

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Category: Certificate login

Zowe: Client start here

The Zowe Command Level Interface running on the work station allows you to issue REST requests to the back end, and capture the output.

There is a Zowe plugin for VSCode IDE which allows you to z/OS files, etc from within VSCode.

Before you can use the Zowe Command Level Interface(CLI), or the Zowe extensions to VSCode you need to install code on your work station.

Follow Zowe CLI quick start.

I executed Installing Zowe CLI core from public npm, but did not install any plugins.

Displaying help

The command zowe –help-web did not work for me on Linux (known bug – caused by browser security).

Issuing commands

My z/OS servers are TLS enabled. The Zowe documentation is for configurations without TLS enabled.

I needed to use

export NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=./cert.doc.ca.ec.pem
zowe zos-files list data-set "COLIN.Z*" --host 10.1.1.2 --port 10443 ...

Because the CA certificate is validated as part of the TLS handshake. If the CA sent from the server, does not match that in the NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS file, you will get a message

Response From Service: Error: self-signed certificate in certificate chain

You should specify the CA certificate location – but you could (for a test system) specify –reject-unauthorized false to override it.

Authenticating

If configured you can logon with certificate (and no password) or userid and password.

Certificate logon

If you have configured z/OSMF to use certificate logon, you map a certificate to a userid using the RACDCERT MAP command.

RACDCERT DELMAP(LABEL('IBMUSER1Label'))ID(IBMUSER) 
RACDCERT MAP ID(IBMUSER) -
WITHLABEL('IBMUSER1Label') -
SDNFILTER('CN=colinpaice.O=cpwebuser.C=GB')
RACDCERT LISTMAP ID(IBMUSER)
SETROPTS RACLIST(DIGTNMAP, DIGTCRIT) REFRESH
  • You can specify the exact Distinguished Name CN=colinpaice.O=cpwebuser.C=GB You need to get the parts in the right order, and use ‘.’ between components.
  • You can select parts of the DN to map to a userid.
  • You can specify the CA which maps to a userid (so all userid signed by O=MYORGCA.C=GB) map to userid MYORGID.

If a certificate did not have a mapping I got

ICH408I USER(IZUSVR  ) GROUP(IZUADMIN) NAME(ZOSMF STARTED TASK O) 560   
DIGITAL CERTIFICATE IS NOT DEFINED. CERTIFICATE SERIAL NUMBER(02AF)
SUBJECT(CN=zzz.O=cporg.C=GB) ISSUER(CN=SSCA256.OU=CA.O=SSS.C=GB).

Userid and password logon

If z/OSMF is not configured for certificate logon, You specify a userid and password on the request. The format depends on the tool used. For example

httpie (https)

https GET https://10.1.1.2:10443/zosmf/restfiles/ds/IBMUSER.ABC –verify ./ca.pem –auth colin:passw0rd

cURL

curl –cacert ca.pem –basic –user colin:passw0rd https://10.1.1.2:10443

Issue a command!

+ NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=./cert.doc.ca.ec.pem
+ zowe zos-files list data-set 'COLIN.Z*' --cert-file zzcolinpaice.pem --cert-key-file zzcolinpaice.key.pem --host 10.1.1.2 --port 10443

Saving the logon parameters.

Once you have managed to get a session to z/OSMF working, you can store the connection parameters in profiles.

See How to save connection parameters: zowe CLI client configuration files

To uninstall Zowe

The command

npm list -g --depth=0

Lists all of the installed packages. This gave me

/usr/lib
├── @zowe/cli@8.23.1
├── corepack@0.32.0
└── npm@11.3.0

To uninstall it I used

 npm uninstall -g @zowe/cli

The list command gave me

/usr/lib
├── corepack@0.32.0
└── npm@11.3.0
Colin Paice Certificate login, client, configuration, ZOWE 1 Comment June 18, 2025September 17, 2025 2 Minutes

Zowe: Start here for my blog posts

I have a lot of blog posts on Zowe. Some are ready to make available, some are works in progress. In the link below, if there is an active link it points to the published topic. If there is no link, it is a place holder.

I do not find the Zowe documentation very easy to use. The documentation expects you to go down a certain path. If you do not follow this path, there is not much to help you. I tend to search the web, get to a page, and then get lost!

The start of the official documentation for server installation is here.

  • What is Zowe ? This gives a back ground in modern system architecture, and how Zowe fits into this
  • Planning. This provides a road map of the set up you will need to do. For example the security changes may take a week to implement system wide, before customising Zowe.
    • Planning for certificates.
    • How do I protect what Zowe users can do on z/OS?
    • Which messages to automate?
  • Installing and configuring z/OS system definitions.
    • Create the security definitions
    • Set up message. Messages I have encountered setting up a Zowe instance.
  • Configuring a run time instance
  • Starting Zowe on z/OS. This starts a minimal system, and helps you check out your definitions.
  • Message using Zowe. End user messages I have experienced
  • Debugging Zowe
    • What does this message mean?
  • Setting up a web browser to use Zowe
  • Configuring end user userids
  • Setting up logon with certificates – TBA
  • Which messages to automate
  • Using VSCODE with Zowe – TBA
  • Problem determination
  • What are good tools for working with a backend? – HTTPie.
  • Specifying Java overrides
  • Zowe on the client
    • What should I used on my client to talk to z/OS?
    • Zowe client start here
    • How to save connection parameters: zowe CLI client configuration files
    • Messages when using zowe Command Level Interface(CLI)
    • The Zowe cli help command is not helpful!
    • Colin’s Zowe CLI options
    • Secure store aren’t.
    • Setting up vscode before you start, so the editors work
  • Zowe explorer
    • Zowe explorer: first baby steps to submitting jobs
  • JSON Web Tokens(JWT)
    • Wow, how to logon securely is so complex….
    • Are JSON Web Tokens secure?
    • Using JWT and when it goes wrong

Colin Paice Certificate login, client, configuration, Messages, Trace, ZOWE Leave a comment May 18, 2025September 18, 2025 2 Minutes

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