April, 2020
This is the process you should follow to IPL the customized MVS 3.8 to the state that batch jobs may be submitted and TSO users may log on and utilize the system.
Open a terminal window (Linux) or a Command Prompt window (Windows) and start hercules from the mvs directory:
In another window, start a tn3270 client and connect to localhost at port 3270. Remember that the 3270 console specification in the Hercules' configuration file has specified a group name of CONSOLE for the console connection, so you must set your TN3270 client settings (LU, GROUP, or something similar, depending upon the client) to localhost, port 3270, and LU=console. And if you are running Windows 10 or macOS, you may need to specify the address 127.0.0.1 instead of the localhost alias.
Your tn3270 client screen for the MVS master console should display an identification screen indicating it has connected to Hercules:
Notice that the Device number field shows a value of 0010, which indicates that this tn3270 client session is correctly connected to address x'010', the 3277 designated as the master console.
So far, this is exactly the same procedure used to IPL the newly generated system. But TSO has now been configured, so you also need to add a TN3270 client session for TSO.
In another window, start a tn3270 client and connect to localhost at port 3270. Remember that the tso 3270 specifications in the Hercules' configuration file have specified a group name of TSO for the tso connections, so you must set your TN3270 client settings (LU, GROUP, or something similar, depending upon the client) to localhost, port 3270, and LU=tso. And again, on Windows 10 or macOS, you may need to specify the address 127.0.0.1 instead of the localhost alias.
Your tn3270 client screen for the TSO session should display an identification screen indicating it has connected to Hercules:
Notice that the Device number field for this single TSO session shows a value of 0400, which indicates that this tn3270 client session is correctly connected to address x'0400', the 3277 designated as the first 3270 available for use by TSO.
If you need to start additional TSO user sessions after the system is running, simply start another TN3270 client and connect it as you did this one. Then press the CLEAR key in the TN3270 client window. This will establish the connection to MVS and the TSO logon screen will appear.
I have written a script for my system that will open these two tn3270 sessions from the Hercules console window command prompt. It is stored in the mvs directory in the file x3270.sh. The script is:
The -efont parameter in the x3270 command for the TSO session makes the font larger, since that is where I spend most of my time working. To invoke the script from the Hercules console window, in the command line type the command ./x3270.sh and press Enter. A similar script should be possible if your Operating System is macOS or Windows.
IPL from the device at address x'150' (the 3350 DASD containing the MVS System Residence volume - dasd/mvsres.3350). At the command prompt in the Hercules console window type the command ipl 0150 and press ENTER.
When MVS IPLs, some users have noticed that Hercules logs many repetitive messages that seem like an error condition exists. In fact, MVS is testing the memory allocated to it by the emulator to see how much memory is available to it and these messages are a result of those tests. If they are a distraction to you, you may edit the Hercules configuration file and change the OSTAILOR NULL line to read OSTAILOR QUIET. You may also enter the Hercules command OSTAILOR QUIET on the command line, and the change will only affect the current session. Setting OSTAILOR QUIET will suppress all error condition log messages.
On the MVS console, you should see:
The next three messages are the same as they were when you IPL the newly created MVS for the first time.
Normally you simply press ENTER, but you can also enter parameters here to control how the IPL proceeds. The parameter that is entered most frequently when you don't simply press Enter has to be R 0,clpa, which is used to rebuild the Link Pack Area if system libraries have been changed so that load modules need to be re-fetched from the libraries and loaded into the paging files. Many of the entries in the IEASYS00 member of SYS1.PARMLIB may be overridden at this prompt.
Type R 0,U. This prompt allows you to specify the reason for the IPL. In MVS installations on real hardware, especially in production environments, IPLs were to be avoided, since they always interrupted the work that people were doing, sometimes from very remote locations. So, frequently you wanted to document exactly why the IPL was being performed. But you may get tired of responding to this prompt, in which case there is a fix for that. There are details at: How can I suppress the IFB010D message at IPL? I even have that jobstream available for download at IFB010D.jcl. Simply save it on your computer and submit it to MVS to rename to load module responsible. If you ever want to reinstitute the prompt, simply reverse the names in the jobstream and submit it again.
Normally you should reply to this message with R 1,noreq to simply bring up JES2 with no further requests for input (that is what the noreq specifies). This is referred to as a WARM start; all JES2 queues will be in the same state they were in when the system was last shut down. If you don't want to retain job data on the queues, you may respond R 1,cold,noreq. There are some times when you may need to clear everything that is stored on the JES2 queue, and to do that the response is R 1,format,noreq. If you request the spool queue to be formatted, you will also have to respond to the two checkpoint reset messages that occurred the first time the system was IPLed.
This is a good place to address a situation that I know some people have had, because they have contacted me about it. If you see these messages at this point:
you did not edit the Hercules' configuration file (conf/mvs.cnf) to remove the comment lines from the DASD device specifications at addresses 180, 190, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, and 253; or more specifically the one that is causing this error is the specification for address x'253' where SYSCPK.3350 is defined. Close everything (no need to try to shut down properly), edit the configuration file, and start the IPL process from the top of this page.
When you see the message IEE159E MESSAGE WAITING at the lower right of the console TN3270 client window, press Program Function Key 12. This will issue the long command that has been set up for PFK12 to set the console into Roll/Delete mode. You will then see IEE163I MODE= RD on the left, directly beneath the input area on the console.
On the MVS console (the tn3270 client window), type the command s net and press Enter. VTAM will start and as soon as it is initialized, TSO will start. If you are like me, this will become a nuisance after a while, and you can put this command in SYS1.PARMLIB(COMMND00) to have VTAM/TSO started automatically:
When you have TSO up, use RPF or REVIEW to edit SYS1.PARMLIB(COMMND00). After building the MVS 3.8j system, it will contain:
Add a new line at the bottom of the member:
Save the modified member. The next time you IPL your system, VTAM and TSO will start automatically.
Log on to the TSO session with one of the TSO user IDs, and you are ready to use the system.
17 September 2020 Please take the time to read this: JES2 Queue Management.
Shutting down the system is the same as it was when we finished customizing MVS.
First you should log off all TSO sessions you have running with the TSO LOGOFF command. When you log off of TSO the tn3270 client window will again display the Network Solicitor screen:
To shut down TSO, on the MVS console, type P TSO and press Enter:
If you have properly logged off all TSO user sessions, the shutdown will be quick and without fuss.
To shut down VTAM, on the MVS console, type Z NET,QUICK and press Enter:
You should be familiar by now how to shut down JES2 and MVS in an orderly fashion - $pjes2/z eod/quiesce - so I will not repeat those details here.
I hope that you have found my instructions useful. If you have questions that I can answer to help expand upon my explanations and examples shown here, please don't hesitate to send them to me:
This page was last updated on September 17, 2020 .
