Creating files with lists of z/VM user IDs

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You can use Linux™ commands to obtain lists of z/VM® user IDs.

You might need lists of z/VM user IDs to specify:
  • Target systems that ts-shell can connect to
  • Target systems a particular user can connect to
  • Target systems for which session logs are to be created
  • A z/VM filter file

Such lists can be extensive and writing them manually is both tedious and error prone. If you have access to the z/VM user directory, and your z/VM user IDs follow a naming convention, you can use the vmur, grep, and cut commands to create a list from the z/VM user directory.

The grep and cut commands are core Linux commands. The vmur command is included in the s390-tools package.

Example: This example is based on the following assumptions:
  • The z/VM user directory has been sent to the reader of your z/VM guest virtual machine.
  • You want to list all z/VM user IDs that begin with LINUX and end with one or more numerals.
[root]# vmur receive -H -t 1234 -O |grep -E "^USER LINUX[0-9]+" |cut -d" " -f2 > userlist
The individual parts of this command perform these tasks:
  • The vmur command reads out the file with spool ID 1234 from the reader.
  • The grep command extracts all lines that specify z/VM user IDs according to the pattern.
  • The cut command reduces the line to just the z/VM user ID.
  • The greater than symbol (>) directs the output to a file, userlist.
You can find out the spool IDs of the files in your z/VM reader with the command: 
[root]# vmur list -q rdr
Tip: Another convenient way to create lists of IDs that follow a pattern is bash brace expansion. For example, to create a list of IDs including lnxa34 through lnxa46, lnxb34 through lnxb46, and lnxc34 through lnxc46 enter: 
$ echo lnx{a..c}{34..46} | tr ' ' '\n'