We are happy to announce that IBM z/OS Ansible Core version 1.9.1 has released to Automation Hub, Galaxy and is available in GitHub. This release comes with optional service and support for Automation Hub users and community support for Galaxy and GitHub users. I recommend reading over the release notes as well as the changelog, this will provide you an understanding of the all the changes.
This release includes 2 enhancements and some important notices.
Bugfixes
- Module zos_find fixes an issue that when option size was specified, it would fail if a PDS/E matched the specified pattern. Now the module filters on utilized size for a PDS/E to correct the behavior.
- Module zos_mvs_raw fixes an issue that when option tmp_hlq was specified to create temporary data sets, it was previously ignored. Now the option honors the High-level qualifier (HLQ) for temporary data sets created during the module execution.
Documentation
A new support matrix has been created to explain the various dependencies, versions and the end of life (EOL) dates. This clarifies when a collection will be out of service, when to start planning a migration and the requirements for each version.
The README has been updated to align to an upcoming certification requirement, more importantly, there is valuable information in here you don't want to miss. The updated document includes topics as requirements, installation, use cases, testing, support, roadmap and even how to communicate with us. For example, see the support and roadmap sections shared below; certainly, you don't want to pass up such an exciting document.
Known Issues
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- When setting location to LOCAL and not specifying the from and to encoding, the modules defaults are not read leaving the file in its original encoding; explicitly set the encodings instead of relying on the default.
- When submitting JCL, the response value returned for byte_count is incorrect.
- zos_job_submit, zos_job_output, zos_operator_action_query
- Can encounter UTF-8 decoding errors when interacting with results that contain non-printable UTF-8 characters in the response. This has been addressed in this release and corrected with ZOAU version 1.2.5.6 or later.
- zos_data_set
- had an undocumented option named size, this has been removed to satisfy collections certification status. Instead, use the intended and documented space_primary option.
- In the past, choices could be defined in either lower or upper case. Now, only the case that is identified in the documentation can be set, this is so that the collection can continue to maintain certified status.
About the Author
Demetrios Dimatos is the IBM z/OS Ansible Core Senior Technical Lead with 17 years mainframe experience and over 20 years of development experience; having led multiple products ranging from client server technologies, administration consoles, IBM Open Platform (Hadoop - HDFS, MapReduce, Yarn) and Spark, Linux, and Solaris kernel development.
The Development Team
Without the development team, this would not be possible. I would like to thank the amazing team who work with passion and perseverance on this project.
- Rich Parker
- Ketan Kelkar
- Oscar Fernando Flores Garcia
- Ivan Alejandro Moreno Soto
- Andre Marcel Gutierrez Benitez
Resources
IBM Ansible z/OS core on Galaxy
IBM Ansible Core Collection Repository on GitHub
IBM Ansible Core Collection on Automation Hub
Red Hat® Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z documentation
IBM Z Open Automation Utilities