SETROPTS options to activate in-storage profile processing

RACF® provides processing to activate in-storage profiles. To help maximize the performance of your RACF database, you can activate one of the following SETROPTS operands for each eligible RACF general resource class.

GENLIST: RACF copies all generic profiles into storage for the specified class.
RACLIST: RACF copies all profiles, both discrete and generic, into storage for the specified class.

Restriction: You cannot activate SETROPTS GENLIST and SETROPTS RACLIST processing for the same general resource class.

There is no need to respecify your GENLIST or RACLIST options for each class following a system IPL. Each time you IPL, RACF automatically reactivates GENLIST and RACLIST processing for your requested classes and recopies the applicable profiles into storage.

Guidelines for choosing between GENLIST and RACLIST processing for a class:

Generally, when you do not share the RACF database with RACF on a VM system, RACLIST provides the best performance with the lowest usage of common storage.
When you share your RACF database with RACF on a VM system, avoid activating RACLIST processing for classes such as VMMDISK or TERMINAL when these classes contain numerous discrete profiles. RACF on VM has limited storage available for in-storage profiles and the storage is located below 16 megabytes on systems using 24-bit addressing.
When a class contains numerous discrete profiles, activating GENLIST, rather than RACLIST, significantly reduces your common storage requirements. However, GENLIST processing might degrade performance, particularly for a z/OS® system sharing the RACF database, because needed profiles might be unavailable in storage and require physical access to the RACF database.
For details about RACF virtual storage requirements, see z/OS Security Server RACF System Programmer's Guide.

For information on in-storage profile processing with shared systems, see: