A control node is any machine with Ansible installed. From the control node, you can run commands and playbooks from a laptop, desktop, or server. However, you cannot run IBM z/OS core collection on a Windows system.
A managed node is often referred to as a target node, or host, and it is managed by Ansible. Ansible need not be installed on a managed node, but SSH must be enabled.
The nodes listed below require these specific versions of software:
- Ansible version: 2.9 or later
- Python: 2.7 or later
- OpenSSH
- Python on z/OS: 3.6 or later
- z/OS: V02.02.00 or later
IBM Z Open Automation Utilities (ZOAU)
- IBM z/OS core collections are dependent on specific versions of ZOAU. For information about the required version of ZOAU, review the release notes.
- z/OS OpenSSH
If the Ansible target is z/OS, you must install a Python distribution ported for this platform. Rocket Software is currently the preferred version for z/OS.
Installation
- Visit the Rocket Software homepage and create a required account in the Rocket Customer Portal.
- Click Downloads on the top left portion the page.
- Select the category z/OpenSource on the left panel.
- Scroll and select Python.
- Download the binaries, installation files, and the README.ZOS onto an x86 machine.
- Transfer the zipped tarball (tar.gz) file to the target z/OS system and extract it according to the instructions in the installation files.
- Follow the additional setup instructions as described in the README.ZOS file.
IBM Z Open Automation Utilities provide support for executing automation tasks on z/OS. With ZOAU, you can run traditional MVS commands, such as IEBCOPY, IDCAMS, and IKJEFT01, as well as perform a number of data set operations in the scripting language of your choice.
Installation
- For the ZOAU FMID, program directory, fix list, latest PTF, installation and configuration instructions, refer to the ZOAU product page.