10/3/2023

Version GA11 z1090-1-11.57.16 Release Letter

1. Product Description

The IBM System z Personal Development Tool (zPDT) provides System z functionality, with selected emulated I/O devices. The z1090 runs in a Linux environment. As the name implies, a zPDT is intended for development and similar purposes such as education and demonstrations. It lacks the Reliability and Service (RAS) and flexibility of a “real” System z machine and is not suitable for production use. This release letter refers to the zPDT that uses a token or USB hardware key defined as a Sentinel Hardware Key (SHK) for licensing management. Please reference the System zPDT Guide and Reference (SG24-8205-06) Redbook, section 1.3 Terminology changes for more information concerning licensing options.

2. New Function

- Introducing the support for the new Gen2 1090 hardware token.

PLEASE read the Addendum , section “NEW TOKENS” in this document.

3. Fixed in this release

- The timeouts associated with the awsstop command have been slightly lengthened to avoid unexpected messages while ending zPDT operation.

- Add Leap second switch in devmap

  - Please read the Addendum , section “LEAP SECONDS”, in this document.

- Crypto Express 8s level, CCA version 8.1.71i . This provides some minor internal fixes.

4. System Configuration and Prerequisites

The supported levels of Linux must be at least the 64-bit version of the following: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.5 or greater, SLES 15 SP3 or greater, openSUSE Leap 15.3 or greater, and Ubuntu 20.04 or greater. Earlier versions are not supported.

5. Install z1090-1-11.57.16

If you are installing the 1090 application for the first time, refer to the Redbook titled IBM zPDT Guide and Reference System z Personal Development Tool (SG24-8205-05), chapter five, zPDT Installation. Please be sure that you have installed the appropriate version of Linux and the prerequisites before proceeding to install the 1090 code. If you have already installed the appropriate version of Linux and the required prerequisites, and you are upgrading from a previous zPDT level, please proceed to the next step.

5.1. Install the 1090 application

You will use root to install the z1090 release. As root, install z1090-1-11.57.16.x86_64 and accept the End User License agreement. If you’ve downloaded the release, set the proper write and access permissions (either chmod 755 or u+x zPDT package name).

5.2. Execute z1090instcheck

The next step is to run the command z1090instcheck to check if conditions of your system are favorable for the 1090 application. You should run this command from the user login configured to run the 1090 application. If you choose to run from root, the path is /usr/z1090/bin/z1090instcheck.

5.3. Plug the Sentinel Hardware Key (SHK)

If not already plugged in, b e sure to plug the SHK into the appropriate USB slot. If this is a brand new SHK that has not been activated yet, you’ll need the 1090 code to be able to activate the SHK. The SHK may be plugged into any available USB 2.0 port. If you are planning to install the SHK in a USB hub make sure that the hub is externally powered, otherwise, you could damage the SHK.

6. 1090 Directory Structure

The following is the directory structure set up by the install process. If the structure is not in place, the awsstart command will create it for you.

/<homeDir>/z1090/logs various traces are placed here

/<homeDir>/z1090/configs IOCDs, IOCP, activation profiles

/<homeDir>/z1090/disks emulated disk volumes

/<homeDir>/z1090/tapes emulated tape volumes

/<homeDir>/z1090/cards input to emulated card reader

/<homeDir>/z1090/list emulated printer output

(where /<homeDir> is whatever the home directory is for the given user)

7. Known Restrictions, Exceptions, and Other Notes

7.1. Restrictions

- SNA is not supported.

- Multicast IP is not supported via OSE managed devices. Multicast IP is only supported with OSA defined in OSD mode.

7.2 Exceptions

- None

7.3 Other Notes

- awsrdr device statement without a full path specified will cause a core dump. Work around is to explicitly provide the full path statement. This is expected to allow the default to work in a future fixpack release.

Addendum

NEW TOKENS:

The IBM 1090 license tokens have been an important part of zPDT since it was

released. The technology involved with these tokens has aged and zPDT must

switch to new tokens. The general plan is to require the use of the new tokens

when renewing a zPDT license, starting in the fourth quarter 2023. Since licenses are generally good for a year, this should result in all users having new tokens by the end of 2024. zPDT will support both the old tokens and the new tokens for at least a year.

The handling of IBM 1091 license tokens used by some ZD&T customers will

be addressed in the future. The software-only ZD&T licenses will not be replaced and will continue to be used.

As a general plan, the Information Technology Company (ITC) will handle the actual distribution of the new tokens. ITC will provide suitable documentation and forum notes. Depending on the customer situation, there might be a minor fee to cover the actual cost of the new tokens. The new tokens are USB devices, slightly smaller than the previous tokens, and have IBM model numbers such as 1090-LT1, 1090-LT2, and so forth.

There are only a few technical changes involved in using the new tokens. For

example, request_license and update_license commands replace the previous

Z1090_token_update command. The query_license command has been expanded to include details about the new tokens. Some IBM and ITC documentation uses the terms Gen1 (for the older SHK tokens) and Gen2 (for the new LDK tokens); this terminology was created a few years ago and these are simply convenient names with no special meanings.

For the newer (Gen2) 1090 tokens, do the following:

- You do not need to stop zPDT and you can have multiple Gen2 tokens installed.

- Switch to Linux root mode. There is currently no option to bypass this step.

- Using a Linux window, issue the command request_license. This should produce a small binary file, with a system-assigned file name, such as <linux host name>_<hash>.zip which is placed in /root.

  - If multiple Gen2 tokens are present, it will ask you to select the one you want to work with

- Send the binary file to your zPDT support organization (this is probably ITC). (Depending on your interface for obtaining renewed licenses, you might need to include the ì11Sî and ì02î numbers from the tag attached to your license token.)

- They should respond with a binary file having a matching name such as <linux host name>_<hash>_update.zip . Place this file in a convenient location in your Linux system.

- Switch to Linux root mode. You can have zPDT still active and multiple tokens connected.

- Issue: update_license <path of>/<linux host name>_<hash>_update.zip

- You can verify that the new Gen2 hardware token licenses have been installed / updated, by issuing the query_license command and observe the license expiration date.

- As in the past, you can also verify by starting zPDT (with the normal awsstart command) and then issuing a token command from a Linux window.

LEAP SECONDS:

Previous zPDT releases have automatically added a leap-seconds offset value to

the time-of-day value it obtains from the base Linux. This results in the time

of day used by z/OS (for example) being different from the Linux time of day by

about 30 seconds. Over the years this has created awkward comparisons for zPDT customers interested in automated timing comparisons, and so forth. The zPDT GA11.2 fixpack provides a new devmap option to bypass this automatic addition of leap seconds and this should result in the z/OS time of day (for example) being within one or two seconds of the Linux time of day. The specific devmap option goes in the “[system]” stanza and is:

cpuopt ADD_LEAPSEC=OFF

to stop the addition of leap seconds to the Linux time-of-day used by zPDT.

The default is to add the leap seconds to the time-of-day value to keep consistent with prior zPDT releases. Future release may change the default to not add the leap seconds in.

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