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Corrupted REXX execs on z/OS Tools and Toys can cause system outage

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Abstract

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED if REXX execs downloaded from z/OS Tools and Toys site between 6 January 2021 and 19 October 2022

Content

   The REXX execs on z/OS Tools and Toys were updated on 6 January 2021 to include license text within the header.  An extraneous '*' was added between the '/' and 'REXX' keyword on the first line of the REXX execs, as follows:
/** REXX **************************************************************
The extra '*' causes these sample REXX execs to recursively spawn new processes when executed from the OMVS shell under a superuser (UID 0 user), which might result in a system outage due to the exhaustion of system address spaces (MAXUSER parameter in IEASYSxx parmlib member).  All of these REXX execs on z/OS Tools and Toys were updated on 18 October 2022 to remove the extraneous '*'.
   Immediate action is required if any REXX execs were downloaded from the z/OS Tools and Toys site between 6 January 2021 and 19 October 2022.  Remove the download REXX execs from the system, and redownload from z/OS Tools and Toys.  Once redownloaded, verify that the first line of the REXX exec contains only one '*' between the '/' and 'REXX' keyword, as follows:
/* REXX **************************************************************

[{"Type":"MASTER","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB56","label":"Z HW"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU058","label":"IBM Infrastructure w\/TPS"},"Product":{"code":"SWG90","label":"z\/OS"},"ARM Category":[{"code":"a8m0z0000000AKIAA2","label":"z\/OS-\u003EUSS - Unix System Services-\u003ELimits"}],"Platform":[{"code":"PF035","label":"z\/OS"}],"Version":"2.4.0;2.5.0"}]

Document Information

Modified date:
20 October 2022

UID

ibm16830951