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Ansible for z/OS: A Beginner’s Guide to Mainframe Automation

In this step-by-step tutorial, BMC Software’s Sujit Neb explains how to run a Ansible Playbook for z/OS

Sujit Neb May 22, 2024

This article is a comprehensive guide to demystify the process of automating mainframe tasks using Ansible. We will begin with the fundamentals of Ansible and its application in modern IT environments, then dive into the specifics of integrating Ansible with z/OS. Whether you are a mainframe novice or an experienced z/OS professional looking to streamline operations, this guide will equip you with the knowledge and step-by-step setup needed to leverage Ansible for efficient, scalable and repeatable tasks.

What Is Ansible?

Ansible is an agentless architecture that offers open-source automation that is simple, flexible and powerful. Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z helps you connect IBM zSystems to your wider enterprise automation strategy through the Ansible Automation Platform ecosystem.

How Ansible Works

In simple words, you must have at least two systems, where one system is used as a control node that runs your Ansible playbook (contains a task) on managed node to configure the system. See illustration given in the Figure 1 as below.

Figure 1. Control node managing the node or host.
Figure 1. Control node managing the node or host. (click to expand)

What to Know Before Getting Started

Ansible automates the management of remote systems and controls their desired state. Most Ansible environments have three main components:

  1. Control node: A system on which Ansible is installed. You run Ansible commands such as Ansible or Ansible inventory on a control node.
  2. Inventory: A list of managed nodes that are logically organized. You create an inventory on the control node to describe host deployments to Ansible.
  3. Managed node: A remote system, or host, that Ansible controls.

Let’s dive in to understand each component showcased in Figure 2.

  • Modules: Also referred to as “task plug-ins” or “library plug-ins,” modules are discrete units of code that can be used from the command line or in a playbook task. Ansible executes each module, usually on the remote managed node, and collects return values. In Ansible 2.10 and later, most modules are hosted in collections.
  • Inventory: Ansible automates tasks on managed nodes or “hosts” in your infrastructure, using a list or group of lists known as inventory. 
  • Plug-ins: Plug-ins offer options and extensions for the core features of Ansible: transforming data, logging output, connecting to inventory and more.
  • Playbooks: Playbooks can finely orchestrate multiple slices of your infrastructure topology, with very detailed control over how many machines to tackle at a time.
Figure 2. Sample workflow using Ansible Automation Engine.
Figure 2. Sample workflow using Ansible Automation Engine. (click to expand)

How to Run an Ansible Playbook for z/OS

Step 1: Set Up z/OS as a Managed Node

Setting up z/OS to be an Ansible-managed node is simple. Ansible is an agentless architecture, which means that there’s no server-side component that needs to be installed on any managed node.

All you’ll need is:

  • SSH (secure shell protocol) enabled
  • z/OS Unix System Services enabled
  • Python or IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Python installed
  • IBM Z Open Automation Utilities
  • z/OS V2R3 or later

Step 2: Linux as a Control Node

Download and install Ansible on Linux. Here I am using an example from Red Hat Linux however you can choose your own version.

Install Python 3.5 or later. See, the installed version as in Figure 3.

     $ sudo dnf install python3

Figure 3. Installed Python version number.
Figure 3. Installed Python version number. (click to expand)

Install Ansible on your local machine as in Figure 4.

     $ sudo pip3 install ansible

Figure 4. pip command to install Ansible.
Figure 4. pip command to install Ansible.

Install the z/OS core collection as in Figure 5. (click to expand)

     $ ansible-galaxy collection install ibm.<collection>

Figure 5. ansible-galaxy install command to install ibm_zos_core collection.
Figure 5. ansible-galaxy install command to install ibm_zos_core collection. (click to expand)

Verify that Ansible is installed on your machine as in Figure 6.

     $ ansible –version

Figure 6. Ansible version and configuration details.
Figure 6. Ansible version and configuration details. (click to expand)

Notethat the version for each module needs to match. Read more on this GitHub page under the Playbook requirements section.

Step 3: Inventory and Files Setup

Follow these steps to complete the inventory file setup.

Inventory file

Create the Inventory file with the system Information that Ansible will manage.

We are using inventory as in Figure 7: yourhost.yml

Figure 7. yourhost yml file with the required details.
Figure 7. yourhost yml file with the required details. (click to expand)

Here, ansible_user and ansible_password contains the TSO_ID and TSO_PASSWORD respectively.

View the inventory reference.

Check/Create your ansible.cfg file

A simple ansible.cfg configuration file will include a few stuff that is required to ensure your playbooks runs without asking password each time. We are using ansible.cfg as in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Ansible configuration details.
Figure 8. Ansible configuration details. (click to expand)

View this configuration reference.

Create your ping.yml file

A simple ping.yml configuration file will include details about the host, vars and PATH.

We are using ping.yml as in Figure 9:

Figure 9. inventory(ping.yml) file with required details.
Figure 9. inventory(ping.yml) file with required details. (click to expand)

View the reference.

Now, you have all your files set up and it’s time to verify.

Check Ansible Connections to z/OS

Run following command on the terminal to check the connection as in Figure 10:

Figure 10. Run command for your Ansible playbook.
Figure 10. Run command for your Ansible playbook. (click to expand)

The result indicates (as in Figure 11) that the Ansible was successfully able to connect to the z/OS system.

Figure 11. Result of your Ansible playbook.
Figure 11. Result of your Ansible playbook. (click to expand)

We are now ready with the setup to run the first Ansible playbook for z/OS!

Run Your First Ansible Playbook for z/OS

You will need to have:

  1. inventory.yml (yourhost.yml is the file name in our example)
  2. submit-job.yml
  3. ansible.cfg

You can use any playbook of your choice to run the task on your managed node, here in this example we will see a simple Submit JCL Job with fetching results on JCL Job completion. See as in Figure 12, submit-job.yml.

Figure 12. Submit Job yml file with the required details.
Figure 12. Submit Job yml file with the required details. (click to expand)

Follow these three steps to run a playbook:

  1. Edit the ansible.cfg file to include pipelining = true.
  2. Modify the inventory (yourhost.yml) to add the z/OS host, TSO user details and Python location.
  3. Run the Ansible playbook using the following command, as in Figure 13:
Figure 13. Command to run your Ansible playbook.
Figure 13. Command to run your Ansible playbook. (click to expand)

Verify JCL Job output with the JCL Job submitted earlier has returned result, see Figure 14.

Result contains:

Host – xxx. bmc.com

JOB ID – JOB44381

MAXCC – 0008

Figure 14. Results of Submit JCL Ansible playbook.
Figure 14. Results of Submit JCL Ansible playbook. (click to expand)

Congratulations! You’ve just run your first Ansible playbook for z/OS.

Why Automate Using Ansible

Ansible is simple to use and configure. To ease your day-to-day maintenance activities and to focus on some innovative work. Your mainframe automation journey should start with this basic setup. Here are some specific z/OS automation tasks that can be achieved using Ansible for z/OS.

1. Job Submission and Management

  • Submit JCL jobs to the z/OS JES (job entry subsystem)
  • Monitor job status and retrieve job output
  • Handle job dependencies and sequencing

2. Data Set Management

  • Allocate new data sets with specific attributes
  • Delete existing data sets
  • Copy or move data sets between different locations

3. USS (Unix System Services) Operations

  • Create and delete directories and files
  • Modify file permissions
  • Execute shell commands within the z/OS UNIX environment

4. z/OS System Configuration

  • Modify system parameters
  • Update configuration files
  • Restart subsystems or apply configuration changes dynamically

5. Security and User Management

  • Create, modify or delete RACF users and groups
  • Assign and revoke permissions

6. Software Management

  • Automate software package installation
  • Manage software updates and patches
  • Deploy applications and middleware

By the end of this journey, you will have a solid foundation in using Ansible to automate tasks on z/OS, transforming how you manage mainframe environments. The seamless integration of Ansible with z/OS opens a new realm of possibilities for enhancing operational efficiency, reducing human error and enabling agile DevOps practices in mainframe operations. Welcome to a new era of mainframe automation, made easy with Ansible.

Some of these playbooks for z/OS are available for free here.

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