Prerequisites

IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud configuration prerequisites

Ensure you have access to a VSI that you set up in an IBM Cloud VPC with the following characteristics:

• The VSI uses the z/OS development and test stock image (ibm-zos-2-5-s390x-dev-test-wazi) or a custom image that you created by using Wazi Image Builder.

• The VPC is configured for access securely with a Virtual Private Network that you connected to. Do not use a floating IP because it might expose your image ports to the internet.

  • See Setting up OpenVPN to access the VSI for instructions on how to install a VPN server.

  • See Configuring an OpenVPN client to access the VSI for instructions for users to download and install a VPN client.

• (Optional) The VSI runs on a subnet that access to the internet via public gateway. For more information, see External connectivity . This is required only for convenience with the tutorials and scripts that are provided in this guide to allow cloning GitHub repositories with sample code directly on the z/OS UNIX System Services of the z/OS VSI. You can also clone the repo on your local development client and copy it to the VSI. To create a public gateway, complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to IBM Cloud .

  2. In the VPC Infrastructure Web UI, select Public gateways.

  3. Click Create to create a gateway for the VPC in the same location and resource group as your z/OS virtual server instanceI.

  4. Associate the gateway with the subnet in which your instance runs. You can do this in the web UI of the gateway or the subnet in IBM Cloud.

• The instance is created with at least one SSH public key for access. The creator of the instance can add more public keys by using SSH and adding them to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file in the home directory of the z/OS users that they enabled, for example in /u/ibmuser/.ssh/authorized_keys.

• All z/OS users are disabled by default when you create a VSI. You must enable at least one user to complete the tutorial steps. The creator of the VSI can log on with the SSH key and execute TSO commands on z/OS UNIX to enable the user with a password phrase. The password phrase can then be used for client tools such as Zowe CLI profiles.

  ssh ibmuser@<vsi ip address>
  tsocmd "ALTUSER IBMUSER PHRASE('YOUR PASSWORD PHRASE') NOEXPIRE RESUME"
  

Development client prerequisites

To use the VSI with the IBM development tools of your choice, ensure that you have fully installed and configured at least one of the following development clients:

• VS Code with the latest extensions and Zowe CLI components. Go to Downloads and click VSCode in the IBM Wazi Code row of the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack table to get a .zip file. For more information, see Getting started with IBM Z Open Editor .

• IBM Wazi for Eclipse 2.4.0 or IBM Developer for z/OS 16.0.0

• IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces as documented in details in Deploying and using IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces from a Red Hat OpenShift cluster in your VPC

Optionally, you can use Ansible playbooks to simplify developer setup. To use Ansible playbooks, you need to run predefined playbooks and review them, but not edit them, and have it configured on your development machine. If you do not have Ansible installed, you need to run commands that are included in the playbooks manually.

You can run the following two commands on MacOS with Brew to install Ansible and the Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z .

brew install ansible
ansible-galaxy collection install ibm.ibm_zos_core

For an overview of all the prerequisites and installation alternatives for Ansible, check out Requirements .

The Git repository contains example programs and scripts to use in these tutorials. Ensure that you have access to GitHub and have installed Git on your development machine. If you are working on Windows, you need to install and configure Git for Windows. Then, you can also execute the Bash shell scripts that are provided with the examples.

Available services

The z/OS development and test stock image provides the following services.

Table 1. Key services and ports

For more information about port numbers, installed libraries and modules, and other available software packages, see devtest1.yml and Configurations in z/OS stock images.