I found this from a PMR I opened about 10 years ago asking about /etc or /var updates, the response from IBM then was and I believe still is fact;
IBM will not via SMP/E apply place anything in either the /etc or /var directories, thus it is not necessary to mount them for the SMP/E apply portion of the maintenance upgrade process. If any updates are required they would be as hold actions in the applicable ptf's, and as such the /etc and /var hfs data sets can be mounted separately to facilitate the required updates. If you do require that the directories be changed back to real directories for another purpose, then SYS1.SAMPLIB member BPXISETD will convert the symbolic links back to real directories, and BPXISETS will convert the directories back to symbolic links. Carmen Vitullo ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Jousma" <david.jou...@53.com> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Sent: Friday, February 9, 2018 1:17:26 PM Subject: Re: Best Practices for z/OS Maintenance Just did the LIST DDDEF. As suspected, there are no references in my V2.3 target zones for anything /etc or /var or /Service/etc or /Service/var _________________________________________________________________ Dave Jousma Manager Mainframe Engineering, Assistant Vice President david.jou...@53.com 1830 East Paris, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 MD RSCB2H p 616.653.8429 f 616.653.2717 -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jesse 1 Robinson Sent: Friday, February 09, 2018 1:32 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Best Practices for z/OS Maintenance **CAUTION EXTERNAL EMAIL** **DO NOT open attachments or click on links from unknown senders or unexpected emails** I would like to investigate this issue here, but I don't know how to find a DDDEF that might point to the /etc or /var file system. As I said previously, our /etc and /var file systems in production are 'permanent' in that they are not updated by our maintenance migration. But I am concerned about the situation on the (only) system where we actually run SMPE. . . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile 626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW robin...@sce.com -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Art Gutowski Sent: Friday, February 09, 2018 9:53 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: (External):Re: Best Practices for z/OS Maintenance >We don't mount the IBM provided /etc /var file systems for actual use. We use >those to compare with what we have. >AFAIK, there is NOT any SMPE that updates those anyway, its just what >Serverpac provides. >I never mount those filesystems for SMPE maintenance and never get any errors. SMP/E LIST DDDEF will confirm that assumption. It's been a while since I've had to do z/OS maintenance, but I've learned not to take anything for granted with SMP/E, and especially with z/OS UNIX filesystems. IF you find any DDDEFs pointing to /etc or /var, they would need to be changed to some variation of /service as you hopefully do with your version FS. If you manage multiple target and distribution pairs, I highly recommend using automount to ensure SMP/E mounts the matching version root FS for the target zone and SYSRES. A colleague (who frequents this list), set this up at a prior shop of ours. It was not trivial. He had a ServiceLink Q&A open with IBM for weeks, and there was much discussion among the team and extensive testing. However, once the various maps were defined (we had to support multiple versions of languages as well), the DDDEFs were updated, and we modified our cloning process to keep up, everything worked flawlessly. IJS, I would not take the lack of errors as a golden stamp of approval. We were burned badly by this assumption - our SYSRES and version FS (and SMP/E) got out of sync, and we had no obvious indication. If memory serves, we had to dig through the SMP/E LOG (the job SYSOUT was probably long gone) to find that SMP/E had done exactly what it was told to do: apply UNIX elements to the wrong path/filesystem. Art ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN **CAUTION EXTERNAL EMAIL** **DO NOT open attachments or click on links from unknown senders or unexpected emails** This e-mail transmission contains information that is confidential and may be privileged. It is intended only for the addressee(s) named above. If you receive this e-mail in error, please do not read, copy or disseminate it in any manner. 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