Modules

Modules can be used in a playbook to automate tasks. Ansible® executes each module on the target node and returns the result back to the controller.

The IBM® z/OS® CICS® collection provides two categories of modules:

• Modules for working with CICS and CICSPlex SM resources and definitions. These modules interact with CMCI over an HTTP connection by leveraging the CMCI REST API. These modules are collectively referred to as CMCI modules in documentation.

• Modules for provisioning and deprovisioning of CICS TS regions and for CICS startup and shutdown operations. These modules are collectively referred to as CICS provisioning modules in documentation.

These modules have different requirements of the managed node. For details, see Requirements of managed nodes.

Using Defaults Groups in CICS Provisioning Modules

The CICS provisioning modules use several defaults groups. In particular, these two defaults groups are used for specific purposes:

• cics_data_sets can be used to specify the location of a CICS installation.

• region_data_sets can be used to specify a high level qualifier for the data sets used by a single CICS region.

The example below shows how to use these default groups within the global_catalog module.

- name: Initialize a global catalog
  ibm.ibm_zos_cics.global_catalog:
    region_data_sets:
      template: "REGIONS.ABCD0001.<< data_set_name >>"
    cics_data_sets:
      template: "CICSTS61.CICS.<< lib_name >>"
    state: "initial"

In the above example, the global catalog is created at the data set location of REGIONS.ABCD0001.DFHGCD, and the CICS load libraries can be found at CICSTS61.CICS, which means that the SDFHLOAD library can be found at CICSTS61.CICS.SDFHLOAD.

These groups can be placed in a module_defaults section, which means that all the CICS provisioning modules use the same high level qualifier for the region data sets, and the location of the CICS installation only has to be declared once for all the modules.

To override the data set location or name for a specific task, you can provide an additional parameter to the region_data_sets group as shown in the example for a global catalog data set below.

- name: Initialize a global catalog with a custom name
  ibm.ibm_zos_cics.global_catalog:
    region_data_sets:
      dfhgcd:
        dsn: "MY.CICS.GLOBAL.CATALOG"
    cics_data_sets:
      template: "CICSTS61.CICS.<< lib_name >>"
    state: "initial"

Module Reference

The IBM® z/OS® CICS® collection contains these modules. For each module, the accepted parameters, return values, and examples are provided in the documentation.

• aux_temp_storage – Create and remove the CICS auxiliary temporary storage data set
• aux_trace – Allocate auxiliary trace data sets
• cmci_action – Perform actions on CICS and CICSPlex SM resources
• cmci_create – Create CICS and CICSPlex SM definitions
• cmci_delete – Delete CICS and CICSPlex SM resources
• cmci_get – Query CICS and CICSPlex SM resources and definitions
• cmci_update – Update CICS and CICSPlex resources and definitions
• csd – Create, remove, and manage the CICS CSD
• global_catalog – Create, remove, and manage the CICS global catalog
• local_catalog – Create, remove, and manage the CICS local catalog
• local_request_queue – Create and remove the CICS local request queue
• region_jcl – Create CICS startup JCL data set
• stop_region – Stop a CICS region
• td_intrapartition – Create and remove the CICS transient data intrapartition data set
• transaction_dump – Allocate transaction dump data sets