Category: CLI

Zowe cli help command is not helpful!

The zowe cli help option does not easily tell you how to get all of the help. In order to get the syntax of the command – you have to know the full command with the and then add the --help option! (This is working as designed!)

There is some online help here in a tree view or a “flat view of all of the commands“.

Whoops profile options not found


Step 1

The command zowe --help gives output including

USAGE
   zowe <group>

   Where <group> is one of the following:

 GROUPS
   auth                          Connect to Zowe API ML authentication service    
   config                        Manage JSON project and global configuration
   zos-console | console         Issue z/OS console commands and collect responses
 
...

Step 2

Now you know there is a console command….

The command zowe --help console gives output including

 USAGE
 
   zowe zos-console <group>

   Where <group> is one of the following:

 GROUPS

   collect Collect z/OS console command responses
   issue   Issue z/OS console commands

Step 3

Now you know there is a console issue command…

The command zowe --help console issue finally gives lots of output including

  • OPTIONS
    • --console-name | --cn | -c
    • --include-details | --id | -i
    • --key-only | --ko | -k (boolean)
    • --return-first | --rf | -r (boolean)
    • --solicited-keyword | --sk | -s (string)
  • ZOSMF CONNECTION OPTIONS
    • --host | -H (string) The z/OSMF server host name.
    • --port | -P (number) The z/OSMF server port. Default value: 443
    • --user | -u (string) Mainframe (z/OSMF) user name, which can be the same as your TSO login. Your TSO logon userid
    • --password | --pass | --pw (string) Mainframe (z/OSMF) password, which can be the same as your TSO password. Your TSO userid’s password
    • --reject-unauthorized | --ru (boolean) Reject self-signed certificates. Default value: true
    • --base-path | --bp (string) The base path for your API mediation layer instance. Specify this option to prepend the base path to all z/OSMF resources when making REST requests. Do not specify this option if you are not using an API mediation layer.
    • --protocol (string)
    • --cert-file (local file path) The file path to a certificate file to use for authentication
    • --cert-key-file (local file path) The file path to a certificate key file to use for authentication
    • --completion-timeout | --cto (number) The amount in time, in seconds, a REST operation should wait to complete before timing out
    • --establish-connection-timeout | --ecto (number) The amount of time, in seconds, a REST operation should wait while connecting to the server before timing out.
  • PROFILE OPTIONS
    • --zosmf-profile | --zosmf-p (string) The name of a (zosmf) profile to load for this command execution.
    • --base-profile | --base-p (string) The name of a (base) profile to load for this command execution.
  • BASE CONNECTION OPTIONS
    • --token-type | --tt (string) The type of token to get and use for the API. Omit this option to use the default token type, which is provided by ‘zowe auth login’.
    • --token-value | --tv (string) The value of the token to pass to the API.
  • MQ options
    • --mq-profile | --mq-p (string) The name of a (MQ) profile to load for this command execution.

Now you know what the options are you can search for them. This pointed me to the console command page.

Whoops profile options not found

I fell over trying to specify a nested profile.

For example 

...
 "profiles": {
        "qa_lpar": { // Base profile connection properties are used unless overriden
            "type": "base",
            "properties": {
            }
        },
        "profiles": {
            "mq": {... 
            },

This is referred to as qa_lpar.mq .

What would I have done?

Personally I would have have a help page which listed all of the common options then list commands for example

  • Common options
    • --host etc

Specific commands