IBM® IMS™ Plug-in for Zowe CLI

The IBM IMS Plug-in for Zowe CLI lets you extend Zowe CLI such that it can interact with IMS resources (regions, programs and transactions). You can use the plug-in to start, stop, and query regions and start, stop, query, and update programs and transactions.

Note: For more information about IMS, see IBM Information Management System (IMS) on the IBM Knowledge Center.

Use cases

As an application developer or DevOps administrator, you can use IBM IMS Plug-in for Zowe CLI to perform the following tasks:

• Refresh IMS transactions, programs, and dependent IMS regions.
• Deploy application code into IMS production or test systems.
• Write scripts to automate IMS actions that you traditionally perform using ISPF editors, TSO, and SPOC.

Commands

For detailed documentation on commands, actions, and options available in this plug-in, see our Web Help. It is available for download in three formats: a PDF document, an interactive online version, and a ZIP file containing the HTML for the online version.

• Browse Online
• Download (ZIP)
• Download (PDF)

Software requirements

Before you install the plug-in, meet the software requirements in Software requirements for Zowe CLI plug-ins.

Installing

Use one of the following methods to install or update the plug-in:

• Installing plug-ins from an online registry

• Installing plug-ins from a local package

Creating user profiles

You create an IMS profile to avoid entering your connection details each time that you issue a command. You can create multiple profiles and switch between them as needed. Use one of the following methods to create a profile:

• Create plug-in profiles using a configuration file: Specify your profile and connection details in the zowe.config.json configuration file.

• Create plug-in profiles using a command: Issue the zowe profiles create command to create the profile.

We recommend that you create profiles using the configuration file. We do not recommend using profile commands because we are removing them in a future major release.

Creating plug-in profiles using a configuration file

When you issue various zowe config commands, such as init, auto-init, and convert-profiles, they create a zowe.config.json configuration file. When you install the z/OS IMS plug-in, the commands create an entry for an ims profile in your zowe.config.json file.

Alternatively, you can create an ims profile manually by adding a section that contains the configuration details to your zowe.config.json configuration file.

1. Browse to the following directory: C:\Users\<username>\.zowe

2. Open the zowe.config.json configuration file using a text editor or IDE, such as Visual Studio Code or IntelliJ.

   NOTE: If the file does not exist, issue the following command to create the configuration file: zowe config init --gc

3. Add code to the "profiles" section as shown in the following example:

   "Your_ims_profile": {
       "type": "ims",
       "properties": {
           "host": "Your_host_name",
           "port": Your_port_number,
           "imsConnectHost": “Your_ims_connect_host_name”,
           “imsConnectPort”: Your_ims_connect_port_number
       },
       "secure": [
           "user",
           "password"
       ]
   }

4. Save the file

You can now use your profile when you issue commands in the ims command group.

Creating plug-in profiles using a command

The following steps describe how to create a profile using the zowe profiles create command.

1. Open a terminal window and issue the following command:

   zowe profiles create ims <profile_name> --host <host> --port <port> --user <user> --password <password> --ims-connect-port <ims_port> --ims-connect-host <ims_host>

• profile_name:

  Specifies a name for your profile.

• host:

  Specifies the host name for the instance.

• user:

  Specifies your user name to log in to the instance.

• password:

  Specifies your password to log in to the instance.

• port:

  Specifies the port number to connect to the instance.

• ims_host:

  Specifies the host name to connect to the IMS Connect instance.

• ims_port:

  Specifies the port number to connect to the IMS Connect instance.

  Example:

  zowe profiles create ims-profile imsplex1 --host ims.zowe.org –-port 1443 --user zowe --password zowepass --ims-connect-host imsconnect.zowe.org --ims-connect-port 1444

2. Press Enter. The result of the command displays as a success or failure message.

You can now use your profile when you issue commands in the ims command group.