What is a check?
- Changes in settings or configuration values that occur dynamically over the life of an IPL. Checks that look for changes in these values should run periodically to keep the installation aware of changes.
- Threshold levels approaching the upper limits, especially those that might occur gradually or insidiously.
- Single points of failure in a configuration.
- Unhealthy combinations of configurations or values that an installation might not think to check.
- The check owner is the owning element or component. For IBM checks, checks, these will all start with IBM. For example, IBMASM and IBMUSS are two IBM check owners.
- The check name is the name of the check itself, such as ASM_NUMBER_LOCAL_DATASETS.
- Interval, or how often the check will run
- Severity of the check, which influences how check output is issued
- Routing and descriptor codes for the check
Check output: A check issues its output as messages, which you can view using SDSF, the HZSPRINT utility, or a log stream that collects a history of check output. If a check finds a potential problem, it issues a WTO message. We will call these messages exceptions. The check exception messages are issued both as WTOs and also to the message buffer. The WTO version contains only the message text, while the exception message in the message buffer includes both the text and explanation of the potential problem found, including the severity, as well as information on what to do to fix the potential problem.
Resolving check exceptions: To get the best results from IBM Health Checker for z/OS, you should let it run continuously on your system so that you will know when your system has changed. When you get an exception, you should resolve it using the information in the check exception message or overriding check values, so that you do not receive the same exceptions over and over.
- Printing check output from either SDSF, or using the HZSPRINT utility - see Working with check output.
- Displaying check information
- Taking one time actions against checks, such as:
- Activating or deactivating checks
- Add new checks
- Refresh checks - Refresh processing first deletes a check from the IBM Health Checker for z/OS and then adds it back to the system.
- Run checks
- Updating check values temporarily using SDSF or the MODIFY hzsproc command. See Making dynamic, temporary changes to checks.
- Updating check values permanently using HZSPRMxx. See Making persistent changes to checks.