Such a big task learning MVS. But fun...so far. I don't mind banging my head against the wall a little bit, but I need some success along the way. As I said before, I'd prefer writing JCL and programs locally on Linux. And I have had some success submitting some jobs there. However some of the JCL I'm submitting from Linux is failing with RAKF (RACF) errors. I suspect it has something to do with permissions to create datasets from an unknown user. I suspect jobs submitted from within TK4 are supplying valid user credentials. At any rate retyping my tape processing JCL within the TK4 environment allowed it to run without those errors. Luckily this JCL is short. Perhaps there is a simple JCL parameter to supply that information. Maybe I'll figure it out later. As they say... Rome wasn't built in a day !
So now I must figure out what program I use to load my AWSTAPE into an MVS dataset. IEBCOPY or IEBGENER? Or some other program? How do I define the DD card for the I/O?
I think I have created valid AWSTAPE of 1001, 141 byte customer records to test with. A small file in my fake business.
So far I'm not successfully accessing the tape drives. I get error or operator messages I'm currently unfamiliar with. Then my job is stuck waiting. And I can't even figure out how to cancel it. Then MVS won't shut down. So I risk data corruption just quitting. However with my MVS skills severely lacking, my current data recovery plan is just occasionally zip the whole TK4 directory up every now and then. Then restore from that in the event of a catastrophe.