Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Hi,

One of our client has aksed us if there is a way to code a 'hyperlink' type entry on the mainframe to be able to click to a share drive or server? I don't think it is possible but trying to find out the alternate ways, just in case they exist. Can someone of you please advise on this?

Does the mainframe run z/OS Distributed File Service or other software that allows it to recognize the share drive?  If so, is the share drive mounted at IPL time so it is always there when the hyperlink is used?  Is the mainframe (depending upon the version of z/OS being used) running the HTTP server or Apache server software?  Assuming all this is being done on the mainframe -- and most likely you will need to talk to someone in your site support group to know for sure -- then you could create a web page on the mainframe that has hyperlinks for the share drive.  At a previous employer, we ran HTTP server on z/OS under Unix System Services and had various hyperlinks to internal web pages, SAS output data sets, and manuals from the various vendors.

Thanks Robert. Can you please direct to some IBM manual for this to study in detail.

I will have to touch base with Support as I am not sure if z/OS runs Distributed File Service or not.

I'm not sure what you're wanting manuals for.  The z/OS 2.1 Information Center has bookshelves for Distributed File Service and HTTP server.  You may also need to look at some of the Unix System Services bookshelf manuals as well.  IIRC, we set up TCP/IP so we had an IP address on the intranet for our mainframe.  We set up HTTP server to listen on port 80 and started it.  At that point, a browser could point to the mainframe IP address and bring up the default HTTP server web page.  From there, you can define links to other web pages as long as the mainframe (the HTTP server user id in particular) has access to them.

Thanks. I was asking about the manual for setting up HTTP server on mainframes.

The HTTP server software is being replaced by Apache in z/OS 2.2, FYI.

Robert Sample wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2016 4:23 pmThe HTTP server software is being replaced by Apache in z/OS 2.2, FYI.

Thanks Robert.

You are very knowledgeable!

You are very knowledgeable!

Thanks for the kind words! I've had the luck of being able to work for a variety of companies doing many different IT functions (from applications development to sales support to systems programming) in my career. I set up an intranet back in 2001 using the HTTP server so I've set up and used hyperlinks on the mainframe. I haven't had a chance to test the Apache replacement for HTTP server (yet).

Yes, He is very knowledgeable and humble to share that knowledge with us - a rare quality these days!