TXSeries 9.2 Beta version available on Docker and it’s pretty quick and easy to work with TXSeries as Docker container. TXSeries Docker image available on Docker Hub

https://hub.docker.com/r/ibmcom/txseries/

This blogs talks about first experience with TXSeries Docker which includes steps to start TXSeries as Docker container and administration of CICS region, SFS server and steps to verify Docker using Installation Verification Programs. 

If you have Docker installed on your Desktop or Linux machine, you are ready to work with TXSeries on a Docker container. You can pull TXSeries 9.2 beta image by using following Docker pull command,

  docker pull ibmcom/txseries

After docker pull command you can see TXSeries Docker image in your local Docker Respository as “ibmcom/txseries” with Tag “latest”

Now you can start your TXSeries Docker container, using default profile or without profile. If you have enabled with profile, container starts a CICS region and SFS server named as TXREGION and TXSFS respectively.

Let's start the TXSeries Docker container with default profile, you can do the start of docker container with default profile by running the following docker run command,

   docker run                                  \

          -p 3270:3270                        \

          -p 1435:1435                         \

          -p 9443:9443                          \

          --name txseries_container -it  \

         -e LICENSE=accept ibmcom/txseries

TXSeries docker exposes few services with default profile exposes 3 ports, one for connecting 3270 Emulator client as PORT 3270 , PORT 9443 used by the administration console and PORT 1435 for IPIC listener of CICS region. The above docker run command mapped those PORTs on host system with same PORT numbers. 

After successful start of Docker container, you can see CICS region console log details are displayed on terminal where you started docker container, You can leave that terminal and it would display activities of default CICS region named TXREGION.

Let’s see now, how to work with default CICS region started by TXSeries Docker Container. You can connect to TXSeries administration console by opening the below URL using a web browser by using user name and password as  txadmin

https://localhost:9443/txseries/admin

If you have started on different system than your desktop, then use IP address instead of local host.

Using administration console , you can add, modify CICS region definitions, create and start new CICS regions.

The default CICS region started by TXSeries Container configured with TXSeries installation verification programs (IVP). So you can connect to CICS region using a terminal and can run IVP transaction. If you are connecting CICS region using TN3270 emulator clients, use Destination IP address as “localhost” or IP address and PORT as 3270. When you connect to TN3270 emulator client, it connects to default CICS region TXREGION. To execute IVP transaction enter transaction name as  “MENU” on terminal and follow MENU transaction instructions.

To get more details on TXSeries Docker Image and usage you can follow below Docker Hub page.

   https://hub.docker.com/r/ibmcom/txseries/