Version 2.3.0 (September 2022)

Welcome to the Zowe Version 2.3.0 release!

See New features and enhancements for a full list of changes to the functionality. See Bug fixes for a list of issues addressed in this release.

Download v2.3.0 build: Want to try new features as soon as possible? You can download the V2.3.0 build from Zowe.org.

New features and enhancements

Zowe Version 2.3.0 contains the enhancements that are described in the following topics.

Zowe installation and packaging

• Added a new dataset SZWELOAD. It contains versions of configmgr named ZWECFG31, ZWECFG64, and ZWERXCFG which can be used to invoke configmgr from within a rexx program. The expected use case is to simplify how complex JCL gets configuration information about Zowe.
• Zowe can now start in a mode called configmgr mode. You can enable this in certain zwe commands by adding --configmgr. Not all commands support this yet. For now, you can use it in zwe start, zwe stop, and zwe components. This mode is generally significantly faster to start up Zowe, but also enforces validation of the zowe.yaml configuration against the zowe.yaml schema files (found in /schemas).
• Zowe can now start using multiple zowe.yaml files when using the configmgr mode. This works for the STC startup as well as the zwe start, zwe stop, and zwe components commands. Each file must follow the same zowe.yaml schema as before, but in the list of files, properties found in a file to the right will be overridden by the file to the left. Through this, you can separate portions of Zowe configuration any way you want. To use multiple files, change your existing --config / CONFIG input to instead be a list of FILE() entries which are colon : separated. For example, zwe start --config FILE(/my/customizations.yaml):FILE(/zowe/defaults.yaml)
• Zowe server YAML files can now have templates within them when using configmgr mode. When the value of any attribute contains ${{ }}, the content within the brackets will be replaced with whatever the template evaluates to. The entries are processed as ECMAScript2020-compatible JavaScript assignments. You can, for example, set one property to the value of another, such as having parmlib: ${{ zowe.setup.dataset.prefix }}.MYPARM rather than needing to type the prefix explicitly. You can also use this to set conditionals. For examples, check the ZSS default yaml file.

Zowe Application Framework

Zowe App Server

• app-server can now be configured by using configmgr. This increases startup time and validation of components and their plugins to increase automatic detection of plugin compatibility issues. This mode can be enabled or disabled with Zowe configuration property zowe.useConfigmgr=true/false.

Zowe Common C

• Added a new build target configmgr-rexx, which builds a version of configmgr that can be used within rexx scripts.

ZSS

• ZSS now utilizes the configuration parameters present in the zowe configuration file via the configmgr, simplifying the startup of ZSS and increasing the validation of its parameters. The file zss/defaults.yaml shows the default configuration parameters of zss, in combination with the schema of the parameters within zss/schemas, though some parameters are derived from zowe-wide parameters or from other components when they involve those other components.
• Improved startup time due to using the configmgr to process plugin registration, and only when the app-server is not enabled, as the app-server does the same thing.

Zowe API Mediation Layer

• Introduction of a new cloud gateway service to provide routing functionality for multi-sysplex environments. (#2576) (7c618c0), closes #2576
• Introduced a new Personal Access Token (PAT) API to evict non-relevant tokens and rules (#2554) (f3aeafa), closes #2554
• Added a Redis sentinel enabled field that allows Sentinel configuration to be added to a file and kept available even when Sentinel is not in use. (#2546) (3779072), closes #2546
• Added customized code snippets to API Catalog. Customized snippets can now be defined as part of the service metadata to be displayed in the API Catalog UI (#2526) (602392e), closes #2526
• Code snippet configuration now enables direct integration of an endpoint into an application without requiring code to integrate the other application's REST APIs. (#2509) (4d2298e), closes #2509
• A Personal Access Token (PAT) for SSO is now accepted. The PAT can now be validated and invalidated using a REST API on the Gateway (#2499) (ad17c18), closes #2499

Zowe CLI

Zowe CLI (Core)

• Added the browser-view option to the zowe zos-files compare data-set command to compare two data sets, and display the differences in the browser. (#1443)
• Added the command zowe zos-files compare local-file-data-set to compare a local file and a data set, and display the differences in the browser and terminal. (#1444)
• Added the command zowe zos-files compare uss-files to compare two uss files, and display the differences in the browser and terminal. (#1445)
• Added the command zowe zos-files compare local-file-uss-file to compare a local file and a uss file, and display the differences in the browser and terminal. (#1446)
• Added the command zowe zos-files compare spool-dd to compare two spool dds, and display the differences in the browser and terminal. (#1447)
• Added the command zowe zos-files compare local-file-spool-dd to compare a local file and a spool dd, and display the differences in the browser and terminal. (#1448)
• Added the ZOWE_CLI_PLUGINS_DIR environment variable to override the location where plug-ins are installed. (#1483)
• Added the zowe zos-files compare data-set command to compare two data sets, and display the differences in the terminal. (#1442)

Zowe CLI Imperative Framework

• Added ZOWE_CLI_PLUGINS_DIR environment variable to override the location where plug-ins are installed. (Zowe CLI #1483)

• Added Diff utility features for getting differences between two files and open diffs in browser. Also added web diff generator for creating web diff dir at the CLI home.

Zowe Explorer

• Added option to edit team configuration file via the + button for easy access. #1896
• Added multiple selection to manage context menu of Datasets, USS, and Jobs views. #1428
• Added Spool file attribute information to a hover over the Spool file's name. #1832
• Added support for CLI home directory environment variable in Team Config file watcher, and support watching Team Config files named zowe.config.json and zowe.config.user.json at both locations. #1913
• Update to Job's View Spool file label to display PROCSTEP if available, if PROCSTEP isn't available the label will display the Spool file's record count. #1889 #1832

Extensibility API for Zowe Explorer

• New API ZoweVsCodeExtension.updateCredentials for credential prompting that updates the ProfilesCache after obtaining credentials from user. #1852
• New API ProfilesCache.updateProfilesArrays to update ProfilesCache.allProfiles for profiles that don't store credentials locally in profile file. #1852
• New API ProfilesCache.isCredentialsSecured to check if credentials are stored securely. #1852

Bug fixes

Zowe Version 2.3.0 contains the bug fixes that are described in the following topics.

Zowe installation and packaging

• Schema pattern for semver range has been simplified as it was not compiling in configmgr
• When zwe components install could not find or set the PC bit of a ZSS plugin, it would print out an example command for fixing the issue. Now, it shows the exact command you could execute to fix the PC bit problem.

Zowe Application Framework

Zowe App Server

• Schema regex pattern for semver range was not working in configmgr, and has been corrected.

Zowe Common C

• Fixed lht functions of collections.c to avoid memory issues on negative keys
• Fixed the help message on configmgr

ZSS

• Fixed an 0C4 error within the /unixfile API in 31-bit mode. This was preventing files from being shown in the editor.
• 0C4 error messages from dataservices are now shown under the SEVERE log instead of the DEBUG log, so that issues can be spotted more easily.
• 0C4 when lht hashmap functions were called with negative key

Zowe API Mediation Layer

• snakeyml update, scheme validation fix (#2577) (ae48669), closes #2577
• Add build info to the manifest.yaml (#2573) (93298dd), closes #2573
• Fix bug in the swagger (#2571) (36997c6), closes #2571
• AdditionalProperties must be outside of properties attribute (#2567) (fea515a), closes #2567
• Enable hsts (#2565) (4cffe97), closes #2565
• Fix code snippets bug (#2564) (23bed56), closes #2564
• Enable redis storage mode in tests (#2522) (11bf491), closes #2522
• Gradle publish after update (#2528) (1baa6f7), closes #2528
• Remove multiple tokens from cookies (#2514) (d5bc187), closes #2514
• Retrieve swagger api docs with or without certificate configuration enabled (#2500) (16ca734), closes #2500

Zowe CLI

Zowe CLI and related components contain the following bug fixes:

• Updated Imperative to include bug fixes in version 5.5.1.
• Renamed download data-set-matching to download data-sets-matching. The old name still exists as an alias.
• Fixed output of download data-sets-matching being printed twice when some data sets fail to download.
• Altered the zowe daemon disable command to kill only the daemon running for the current user.

Zowe CLI (Core)

Zowe CLI Imperative Framework

• Prevented base profile secure-property lookup on the global layer when there is not default base profile. (#881)
• Fixed exception when non-string passed to ImperativeExpect.toBeDefinedAndNonBlank(). (#856)
• Removed periods in command example descriptions so descriptions look syntactically correct. (#795)
• Improved performance of ProfileInfo API to load large team config files. (Zowe Explorer #1911)
• Fixed dot-separated words incorrectly rendered as links in the web help. (#869)
• Web-diff template directory included in files section of package.json file.
• Changed the default log level of Console class from "debug" to "warn" so it is consistent with Logger class behavior. In Zowe v2.0 the Logger class was changed to have a default log level of "warn" but the Console class was not changed. To modify a log level, you can change it after initializing the console like this: console.level = "info"; (Zowe CLI #511)
• Introduced examples for setting default profiles in zowe config set Examples section. (Zowe CLI #1428)
• Fixed error when installing plug-ins that do not define profiles. (#859)
• Removed some extraneous dependencies. (#477)

Db2 Plug-in for Zowe CLI

• Updated ibm_db dependency to be compatible with Node.js 18.

Zowe Explorer

• Fixed extension being slow to load large team config files. #1911
• Fix issue with cached profile information after updates to profiles. #1915
• Fix for saving credentials to v1 profile's yaml file when un-secure and save is selected after credential prompting. #1886
• Fix for outdated cached information after Update Credentials. #1858
• Fix to support ZOWE_CLI_HOME environment variable. #1747
• Fixed activation failure when error reading team configuration file. #1876
• Fixed Profile IO errors by refactoring use of Imperative's CliProfileManager. #1851
• Fixed runtime error found in initForZowe call used by extenders. #1872
• Added error notification for users when OS case sensitivitiy is not set up to avoid issues found with USS files in single directory of same name but different case. #1484
• Added file watcher for team configuration files to fix v2 profile update issues experienced during creation, updating, and deletion of global or project level configuration files in VS Code. #1760
• Updated dependencies for improved security. #1878
• Optimized saving of files on DS/USS when utilizing autosave or experiencing slow upload speeds. #1800
• Updates to use new Zowe Explorer APIs ZoweVsCodeExtension.updateCredentials for credential prompting and ProfilesCache.updateProfilesArrays for profiles that don't store credentials locally in profile file. #1852

Zowe Explorer Extension for FTP

• Fixed for profile properties like "rejectUnauthorized" being ignored.

Extensibility API for Zowe Explorer

• Fix for extenders that call registerCustomProfileType() and recieved error when team configuration file was in place. #1870
• Deprecated ZoweVsCodeExtension.promptCredentials in favor of ZoweVsCodeExtension.updateCredentials. #1852

Vulnerabilities fixed

Zowe discloses fixed vulnerabilities in a timely manner giving you sufficient time to plan your upgrades. Zowe does not disclose the vulnerabilities fixed in the latest release as we respect the need for at least 45 days to decide when and how you upgrade Zowe. When a new release is published, Zowe publishes the vulnerabilities fixed in the previous release. For more information about the Zowe security policy, see the Security page on the Zowe website.

The following security issues were fixed by the Zowe security group in version 2.2.

• BDSA-2019-3199