Replying to my own post. ;-( So I would like to come to bejeesus on this 
subject. In trying to compare the IBM default PPT entries with whatever we may 
have specified, I'm stuck because the new (2.1) D PPT displays first all the 
Parmlib Values followed by the remaining IBM default values. It seems that a 
default value overridden by a parmlib entry is not displayed. In other words, I 
can't see both a default value and a corresponding parmlib value on the same 
system. 

I'm disinclined to IPL with no parmlib entries at all just to see what IBM 
would provide. Does anyone know a straightforward way to compare and contrast 
installation values with default values?

.
.
.
J.O.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler 
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
626-302-7535 Office
323-715-0595 Mobile
[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of J O Skip Robinson
Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2015 8:05 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: TRUSTED attribute for IBM tasks

The moral of the following war story is that no amount of monitoring or tracing 
or testing can save you from Dr. Murphy.  

Some idiot in our shop once misunderstood or misremembered something he thought 
he had heard. He overrode the built-in (default) PPT entry for JES2 to remove 
the blessed attributes. Things worked fine for 10 years until someone else 
innocently created a generic RACF profile that happened to encompass JES2 
checkpoint and spool. At the next IPL, JES2 got S913 on his own data sets. It 
had been so long since the errant PPT entry that even the idiot had no clue it 
was his fault. The idiot should have been fired, but I'm still here. 

.
.
.
J.O.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
626-302-7535 Office
323-715-0595 Mobile
[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: RACF Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stu 
Henderson
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2015 12:48 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: TRUSTED attribute for IBM tasks

Joel,  Your comments make sense.  It would be useful to us all if someone would 
monitor the logging produced by TRUSTED to see which STCs actually use it and 
why.  It would also be useful if IBM (and other
vendor) doc. would provide substantiation, describing the reasoning around 
statements that some STC needs TRUSTED. And maybe possible work arounds.  And 
maybe why effective change control on the configuration files for these STCs is 
important. It strikes me that any security weakness in web facing started tasks 
with TRUSTED would break IBM's Integrity Statement for MVS, since TRUSTED would 
give access to the 
FACILITY class rules named CSVAPF.....   Best regards, Stu


On 8/21/2015 2:23 PM, Tilton, Joel wrote:
> Juan,
> Well no offense to IBM but I've reached a new level of paranoia with them 
> recommending TRUSTED.
>
> Why?  I'm glad you asked. :-)
>
> Optionally TRUSTED means exactly that and in my experience IXGLOGR, GPMSERVE 
> and even the Netivew UNIX STC can function without TRUSTED.
>
> Of course it's much less work to give an STC TRUSTED.  If something is 
> "optional" then I question the "requirement" to give it TRUSTED.
> If I were an auditor I would not want a task having this kind of high powered 
> access just because IBM says its "optional."
>
> Be cautious if you give TRUSTED to anything when you're using SERVAUTH to 
> secure networks and ports.
> You've just given the task total access to any ports and network zones it 
> wants; just because it is an STC does not mean it should be entitled to such 
> high level of access to your network.
>
> I think TRUSTED should really be reserved for core z/OS components like JES 
> or XCF, for example, but certainly not tasks that provide service to end 
> users or listen on ports.
>
> My two cents.  Hope this helps.
>
> Your mileage may vary.
>
> Joel Tilton
> Senior Security Engineer
> EC Mainframe Security Engineering
> DTCC Tampa
> [email protected]
> +1 813-470-2160
>
> Visit us at www.dtcc.com or follow us on Twitter @The_DTCC and on LinkedIn.
> To learn about career opportunities at DTCC, please visit dtcc.com/careers.
>
> Classification:  DTCC Non-Confidential (WHITE)
>
> The views I have expressed in this email are my own personal views, and are 
> not endorsed or supported by, and do not necessarily express or reflect, the 
> views, positions or strategies of my employer.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: RACF Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
> Of Mautalen Juan Guillermo
> Sent: Friday, August 21, 2015 10:13 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: TRUSTED attribute for IBM tasks
>
> Hi!
>
> In the "MVS Initialization and Tuning Reference" book, there is a valuable 
> list of STC that IBM recommends defining as TRUSTED. I always follow this 
> recommendation (even for the OPTIONAL ones).
> We are currently at z/OS 1.13. However, I was looking at the z/OS 2.1 version 
> of this list, and I see some additions (compared with 1.13 list). For 
> instance: SMSPDSE1, WLM, ZFS.
> I was wondering whether to change them to TRUSTED right now (when still in 
> 1.13), or wait until migration (that will not happen very soon, and will 
> probably be to 2.2, by the way). Of course, no harm will be done to a task by 
> marking it TRUSTED, but I don't know whether it is indeed a good idea to do 
> it in advance, when we are not yet running the z/OS version suggesting it.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Juan G. Mautalen

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