Hello All, I'll stop lurking and add my two cents, although Jerry Whitteridge has done as excellent job of explaining what to do! Thanks, Jerry.
First, this area of z/OS hasn't changed in a long long time - since we introduced Shared File System in z/OS UNIX. The /etc and /var directories need to switch between directories (where you mount your /etc and /var file systems for installation), and symbolic links (where you would be executing the system from). We do provide sample jobs to do this switching (BPXISETS and BPXISETD), and it is expected that you convert between directories and symbolic links each time you do installation and deployment of your z/OS system. (Looks like that process might not have been followed 100% by everyone, though, we'll talk risks in a minute.) The BPXISETS/BPXISETD process is documented in the z/OS UNIX Planning book and the z/OS Program Directory and accommodated in ServerPac (and somewhat described in ServerPac Installing Your Order). In ServerPac, job ALTCAT (for full system replace) step UNM1 does the unmount and conversion from directory to symbolic link just before you IPL your system. If you are doing a Software Upgrade, the job is RECATDS step UNM1. This is ServerPac's flavor of the SAMPLIB job BPXISETS that has been incorporated. It is provided as it should, and is in the right place within the installation jobs of ServerPac - right before you IPL the system. The /etc and /var file systems would have been mounted before this job ran, so that they could be unmounted and converted to symbolic links as expected with this job. With a product's mkdir job, directories may be created within /var and /etc. During product and service installation (mkdir or SMP/E APPLY), we do not create files in /etc as that may interfere with existing customization you have, and that would not be good. We had discussed internally *possibly* creating files in /var, but I don't to date know of any product that has done that during their mkdir process or SMP/E APPLY. /var shouldn't be manually customized by the user, so this does not have the concern that /etc would. Now, for the risks: if you had not converted from symbolic links to directories to symbolic links for the installation and deployment of service, then you would not have a copy of the /etc and /var file systems mounted for service install. If you did not have a HOLD ACTION that said to run a mkdir job, you've been ok. If you did have a PTF that had a HOLD ACTION to run the mkdir job, then you would not have been ok. You should have run the BPXISETD (to convert to directories), mounted the file systems, run the mkdir as instructed in the HOLD ACTION, done the APPLY, run the BPXISETS (to convert back to symbolic links), and deployed. I don't see many PTFs with mkdir HOLD ACTIONs, but this is what you'd do if you encountered one. Thanks, Marna WALLE z/OS System Install IBM Poughkeepsie ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
