That is what I do not like about either JOBCLASS control or even ICHBLP within RACF. The choice is either USER-A has BLP and USER-B does not. But that is not limiting enough in my opinion. I want to allow a large group of users the ability to use BLP to map foreign tapes (tapes with volsers that are NOT defined to my Tape Management System), and I want a very small group of users to have the ability to use BLP to map in-house tapes (tapes with volsers that ARE defined to my Tape Management System).
Granted, with BLP the volser specified in the JCL (and mount message) does not have to match the volser of the mounted tape. But, in order to request volume 123456 and get ABC123 mounted instead requires either physical access to operations or the ability to communicate with someone in operations that will mount a volume different than what is being requested. In the shops I was at, that was a small group of system-programmers. The group of people allowed to map foreign tapes was much larger and included application programmers and even data control people. That is why I wanted to make sure that ability to control BLP was not simply a YES/NO decision but also based on volsers. Or, it can also be based on UCB address's; so that only a few physical devices in a secure location can be used for BLP processing. Again, a YES/NO decision is not sufficient. The BLP SAF call should come from the Tape Management System and indicate if the volume is defined or not (foreign or in-house); what UCB device it is mounted on; and possibly even what volser is being called for. But, that is just my 2-cents worth. Russell Witt CA 1 L2 Support Manager Radoslaw said---- ICHBLP is RACF mechanism, with regular USER/GROUP access lists. In simple words JOHN has no right to BLP, while FRANK is allowed to use BLP. JES2 JOBCLASS BLP parameter is "all or nothing". No authorized people. In case of BLP=YES everyone can use it (but other mechanisms like RACF still apply!). For BLP=NO every BLP request is chaged to NL. It can be veeery misleading - BTDT in approx 2002. ;-) RMM can further add its own BLP protection mechanism... BTW: IMHO it's good idea to define one JOBLCASS with BLP=YES and protect the jobclass in RACF using some exit, like IEFUJI. In such scenario BLP is protected (and available for authorized persons!) despite type of configuration of RMM (other TMS) and RACF TAPEVOL. My €0.02 -- Radoslaw Skorupka Lodz, Poland ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
