VRA keys provided by RACF for some abends

For some abends, RACF® provides VRA (variable recording area) keys that can help in describing a problem to the IBM® support center or in narrowing a search when an initial search gets too many matches.

The VRA is part of the SDWA (system diagnostic work area) that recovery routines can use when a problem occurs. The VRA can be included in an SYS1.LOGREC record and in a system dump. To format the VRA, use the DAEDATA control statement in PRDMP or the DAEDATA verbexit in IPCS. Symptoms included in the VRA can be formatted using the SYMPTOMS control statement in PRDMP or the SYMPTOMS verbexit in IPCS.

Figure 1. Sample Symptoms for RACF (DAEDATA Output)

This figure includes the RETAIN search argument and the VRA keys as formatted by DAEDATA.

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A number of headers for VRA keys are produced by RACF. These headers (labeled HEADER FOR DATA) describe error data (labeled HEX ERROR DATA). For example, in this dump RACFCNTS is the header for 01000000, and IPLPTR is the header for 0000EB74.

Headers

Description

RACFCNTS

Number of the current RACF macro request on which the RACF manager failed. This number can be interpreted as X'wwxxyyzz', where:

ww: Is the number of the IPL being processed.
xx: Is the number of the action being processed.
yy: Is the number of the test being processed.
zz: Is reserved.

IPLPTR

Pointer to the input parameter list for the current RACF manager request.

ACTNPTR

Pointer to the action being performed at the time of the abend.

TESTPTR

Pointer to the test being performed at the time of the abend.

MGRREQST

RACF manager request ID for the ICHEINTY macro being performed at the time of the abend. This request ID is also reported in message ICH413I. This ID is included only on internal RACF requests.

Figure 2. Sample SDWA for RACF