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Status Future consideration
Workspace z/TPF Product Family
Categories z/TPF
Created by Guest
Created on May 16, 2025

RELATED IDEAS

Functional entry to update CTKI enterprise name and complex name fields

CTKI contains two fields that are hard-coded that identify the system:

IC0ENTR  DC    CL8'     eee'  ENTERPRISE NAME, RIGHT JUSTIFIED

IC0COMP  DC    CL8'ccccc'     TPF COMPLEX NAME

 

Something like ZCTKI ALTER ENTR xxxx COMP yyyy

Where one or both keyword options could be specified in either order.

Perhaps a ZCTKI DISPLAY option would be nice to have, but not necessary.

The code would restrict data length to a max of 8 characters, and handle the left/right justification in the corresponding fields.

 

This is instead of:

ZDKAT KPI

ZAFIL …

ZRIPL

 

Why is this needed?

TPF identifies itself to VM and we have tools that query the information and depend on its accuracy.  We need to have the complex name set to the test system base that the test system is using.

When we copy a TPF image from one userid to another, the CTKI value on the new userid is incorrect because it reflects the original system, and not the target system.

By having a functional entry to change the values dynamically, it’s trivial to update the CTKI values reliably as part of that copy process.

The identification process is done by CTIN when the system starts up. When the values in CTKI are changed, the ZCTKI command should use the same mechanism CTIN uses to identify with the updated information. This is not critical, because we would update the base TPF disks, then any VPARS system that used it would be identified correctly because when CTIN runs, the correct values would be used.

Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Apr 29, 2026

    We are implementing changes in IPLB to make the CI0COMP change automatic when TPF runs on z/VM.

    The device owner is obtained via diagnose e4 (mdisk info) but getting the correct IPL device number requires parsing diagnose 8 INDICATE USER *.

    The IPL device number is in the VMDBK (VMDIPLNM, and a bit flag indicating whether it's device number or an NSS name) but alas, that info doesn't appear to be exposed other than by CP INDICATE USER *

    Using diag e4 was much simpler that parsing CP QUERY MDISK.

    There may still be requirements for a ZCTKI ALTER command, but less so with IPLB "fixing" it dynamically.

    Reply
  • Guest
    Apr 27, 2026
    Thank you for the additional input.
    Reply
  • Guest
    Apr 25, 2026

    If the goal is to make CI0COMP reflect the VM userid that owns the IPL disk, a change in IPLB can:

    If the guest is running under VM, the use diag 8 to INDICATE USER, get the IPL device number from IPLSYS=DEV nnnn, another diag 8 to QUERY MDISK nnnn, and take the 3rd word from the second line, padded to 8 characters. When IPLB calls CTIN, the correct value is present and SCPID is correct.

    Reply
  • Guest
    May 16, 2025

    A fully automated CMS process on VM can easily bring up a TPF system and issue ZCTKI .... but trying to effect the same change with ZDKAT/ZAFIL is much more complicated because the displacement of the fields has to be obtained elsewhere. Though it's likely the displacements to those fields won't change often, I don't want the risk of hard coding the values and having that cause untold problems down the road. If the displacements do change, the ZCTKI code will always have the correct displacements, even if they vary from one system to another.

    Reply

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