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The solution should allow system symbols to be resolved at run time in INCLUDE dataset/member names.
A customer posted this use case information to the IBMTCPIP-L mailing list on 4/2/2020.
TCP/IP is started via a proclib member; SYS1.PROCLIB(TCPIP).
Within the proclib member is the profile statement; //PROFILE DD DISP=SHR,DSN=TCPIP.PROFILE(&SYSNAME). This will always point to the same member regardless of in which site the LPAR is started; &SYSNAME.
Inside of the member are symbolics for the ip address. We were not allowed to keep the same subnet within both sites. Within the profile member, the 1st 3 octets change depending on the site. The 4th octet remains the same in either site.
; SYMBOL PRIMARY DR
; NAME SITE SITE
; ========= ======= =====
; &IP2 100 200
; &IPSUBNET 192.168 10.10
So in the profile, most IP addresses are written like this:
&IPSUBNET..&IP2..01
&IPSUBNET..&IP2..02
&IPSUBNET..&IP2..03
The MVS symbolics change depending on in which site the LPAR is brought up. This allows us to make changes in only one TCP/IP profile member which will work in either site; primary or disaster recovery.
We have not been able to able to use z/OSMF Network Configuration Assistant (NCA) to install the TCPIP profile, due to the way it handles symbols. NCA will resolve MVS symbols during the import of the TCPIP profile. When NCA pushes the profile member back out to the LPAR, the symbols no longer exist and the ip addresses are hard coded into the profile. This works for the primary site, but then using the same member, the IP addresses will be wrong for the DR site.
To use NCAs Alternate Configuration, we would have to make changes in 2 profile members (primary configuration and alternate configuration) each time we update the profile for a single LPAR. The proclib for TCP/IP points to the system name. //PROFILE DD DSN=TCPIP.PROFILE(&SYSNAME). We would have to change the name of the profile so it would have a unique value for each site. We would need to come up with a new symbolic to handle the profile member name, dependent on each site.
An alternate name for this requirement would be "NCA TCP/IP profile support for using native MVS system symbols"
Could this requirement be satisfied by using runtime symbols in startup JCL? In other words, continue using NCA support as before with NCA generating configuration with resolved symbols, and using symbols in the JCL to point to the correct configuration file name depending on where the stack is being started.