Installing and starting the Zowe started task (ZWESVSTC)

Zowe has a number of runtimes on z/OS: the z/OS Service microservice server, the Zowe Application Server, and the Zowe API Mediation Layer microservices. A single PROCLIB member ZWESVSTC is used to start all of these microservices. This member is installed by Zowe into the SAMPLIB data set SZWESAMP during the installation either a convenience build or SMP/E.

This topic describes how to configure the z/OS runtime in order to launch Zowe. You can do these manually (as described in this topic) or use script to install and configure the Zowe main server. see Installing and Configuring Zowe z/OS components using scripts.

Step 1: Copy the PROCLIB member ZWESVSTC

When the Zowe runtime is launched, it is run under a z/OS started task with the PROCLIB member named ZWESVSTC. A sample PROCLIB is created during installation into the PDS SZWESAMP(ZWESVSTC). To launch Zowe as a started task, you must copy this member to a PDS that is in the PROCLIB concatenation path.

Step 2: Configure ZWESVSTC to run under the correct user ID

The ZWESVSTC should be configured as a started task under the ZWESVUSR user ID with the administrator user ID of ZWEADMIN. If you do not have these IDs already created, the commands to create the user ID and group are supplied in the PDS member ZWESECUR. See Configuring the z/OS system for Zowe. To associate the ZWESVSTC started task with the user ID and group, see Configuring a z/OS system for Zowe. This step will be done once per z/OS environment by a system programmer who has sufficient security privileges.

Step 3: Launch the ZWESVSTC started task

You can launch the Zowe started task in two ways. To see whether the started task has successfully launched see Troubleshooting installation and startup of Zowe z/OS components

Option 1: Starting Zowe from a USS shell

To launch the ZWESVSTC started task, run the zowe-start.sh script from a USS shell. This reads the configuration values from the instance.env file in the Zowe instance directory.

cd <ZOWE_INSTANCE_DIR>/bin
./zowe-start.sh

where,

<ZOWE_INSTANCE_DIR> is the directory where you set the instance directory to. This script starts ZWESVSTC for you so you do not have to log on to TSO and use SDSF.

Option 2: Starting Zowe with the z/OS START command

You can use SDSF to start Zowe.

If you issue z/OS command S ZWESVSTC, the JCL will need to know the instance directory containing the launch and configuration information. To do this add the INSTANCE parameter on the START command when you start Zowe in SDSF:

S ZWESVSTC,INSTANCE='$ZOWE_INSTANCE_DIR',JOBNAME='ZWEXSV'

The $ZOWE_INSTANCE_DIR argument is the fully qualified path to the USS directory containing the instance.env file containing the Zowe configuration.

The JOBNAME='ZWEXSV' argument is optional and the started task will operate correctly without it, however having it specified ensures that the address spaces will be prefixed with ZWEXSV which makes them easier to find in SDSF or locate in RMF records.

If you have a default instance directory you want you always start Zowe with, you can tailor the JCL member ZWESVSTC at this line

//ZWESVSTC   PROC INSTANCE='{{instance_directory}}'

to replace the instance_directory with the location of the Zowe instance directory that contains the configurable Zowe instance directory.