IBM Z® Open Editor
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Docs
News and Blogs
IBM Downloads
VS Code Marketplace
GitHub
  • Overview

    • Introduction
    • Updates and user feedback
  • Getting Started

    • Getting started with IBM Z Open Editor
    • Setting up integrations to interact with z/OS
    • Getting started with Zowe 3.0
  • Configuration

    • Setting preferences
    • Configuring your applications with ZAPP files
    • Setting property groups
    • Setting compiler options
    • Setting file associations
    • Setting language-specific tab stops and rulers
    • Enabling and disabling problems in IBM Z Open Editor
    • Enabling and disabling unreachable COBOL code warnings
    • Customizing the Outline view
    • Setting language-specific maximum line length
    • EBCDIC code pages and mappings files
    • Experimental: Formatting COBOL source code
  • Tutorials

    • Tutorial overview
    • Exploring the user interface
    • Exploring the sample files
    • COBOL editing tutorial
    • COBOL, PL/I Preprocessor tutorial
    • HLASM editing tutorial
    • REXX editing tutorial
    • Managing z/OS resources with IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI tutorial
    • Submitting JCL to compile, link, and run jobs tutorial
  • Editing program files

    • Language References
    • Making COBOL and PL/I code changes
    • Making High Level Assembler code changes
    • Making REXX code changes
    • Making JCL code changes
    • Using and managing code snippets
    • Using the integrated Git
    • Searching for COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, and REXX components
  • Interacting with z/OS using Zowe

    • Interacting with z/OS
    • Creating a configuration profile in Zowe Explorer v3.0.0
    • Migrating your old Zowe yaml profiles for Zowe v3.0
    • Supported methods of authentication for z/OS using Zowe
    • Sharing team configuration files
    • Connecting to z/OS with Zowe Explorer walk through
    • Using the Zowe Explorer views
    • Using Zowe profiles in Z Open Editor
    • Connecting to z/OS using Zowe CLI walk through
    • Using command line to interact with z/OS
    • Interact with RSE Common Properties
  • Advanced Capabilities

    • Overview
    • Activating advanced capabilities
    • Launching a 3270 emulator from Zowe Explorer
    • z/OS Resources Table
    • Data Elements View
    • Program Control Flow Browser
    • Data Flow Browser
    • Preprocessor support
    • Custom Macros for HLASM
    • Language Detection
    • Linting with IBM ZCodeScan
    • User build with IBM Dependency Based Build (DBB)
    • Agent Mode
    • Line Hex Editor
  • Cloud-based Editing

    • Overview to using Cloud and Browser-based platforms
    • Try Z Open Editor in the Red Hat Developer Sandbox
    • Configuring Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces
    • Managing Developer Workspaces
    • Managing secrets
    • Create and use custom images
    • Migrating from IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces
    • Using Z Open Editor on GitHub Codespaces
    • Using Z® Open Editor with Dev Containers
  • Troubleshooting

    • Known issues and limitations
    • Troubleshooting using log files
    • Troubleshooting for User Build
    • Uninstalling CLI plugins and VS Code extensions
  • Reference

    • IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI commands
    • IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI as nodejs SDK package
    • IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI as nodejs SDK reference
    • Example Zowe configuation setups
    • IBM Z Open Editor MCP Tools
    • Accessibility and Keyboard Shortcuts
    • settings.json properties
    • Message ID Reference
    • Other Visual Studio Code extensions
  • Legal information

    • Notices
    • Trademarks
    • Privacy policy considerations

Connecting to z/OS using Zowe CLI walk through

Creating a Zowe team configuration file

  1. Issue the zowe config init command and you will be prompted for profile information. After responding to the prompts, the zowe.config.json file will be added to your ~/.zowe directory.

    • Run zowe config init --global-config to create a global profile.
    • Run zowe config init --help to learn all options for editing profiles by using a command line.

    Note: This tutorial walks through creating a global profile. User scoped configuration is very similar except that the file is created in your project's folder and is named zowe.user.json. Run zowe config init --user-config to create a profile scoped to your project folder.

  2. If you responded to the prompts to enter a username and password for a mainframe service, your credentials are stored securely on your computer by default.

  3. Open the zowe.config.json file in any text editor that supports JSON files, and then update the host and port values and other information needed in the profiles that are listed in the configuration file.

  4. Fill out the rse or zosmf profile template inside zowe.config.json depending on which type of profile you are creating.

  5. You can also use the command line to set team configuration properties. For example, run zowe config set "profiles.host1.profiles.service1.properties.setting" "value" --global-configzowe config set --secure ... to set a secure property.

  6. If username and password were entered in step 1, you can use your profiles to access data sets, z/OS UNIX System Services files and directories, and jobs. If not entered, you will be prompted the first time you run a CLI command. If ‘autoStore:true’ is set in the configuration file, the credentials will be stored securely on your computer.

For more information about team configuration profiles in Zowe, see Zowe CLI documentation.

For a Zowe team configuration file example, see here.

Supported authentication methods

Zowe supports multiple authentication mechanisms, so you are not limited to using only a username and password. For more information, see Supported methods of authentication for z/OS using Zowe.

Last Updated: 6/4/25, 11:18 AM
Contributors: KRISTINA MAYO, Chun Hong Zheng, Nimma Likhitha, likhithanimma1, phaumer, Esther M
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