Interact with RSE Common Properties

The Common Properties service is an optional feature available in IBM z/OS Explorer and must be configured and enabled in the host configuration file (rse.env).

To enable the Common Properties service, a system programmer must set the RSE_COMMON_PROPERTIES variable in the rse.env file. For example, RSE_COMMON_PROPERTIES=/usr/shared/common.properties.

Common Properties provides services for users to store JSON objects in different namespaces. The namespace can be globally accessible by all users or only accessible by the creator of the namespace. Namespace is implemented internally as a JSON document. You can interact with the Common Properties service by using commands that are provided by the IBM® RSE API plug-in for Zowe™ CLI (RSE CLI plug-in) in the Terminal window.

Using RSE CLI plug-in commands

RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI allows users to store JSON configuration or any key-value properties in a namespace that can be shared globally with all users. The namespace can also be created as nonsharable and only accessible by the creator.

Here is a use case for storing and retrieving server configuration properties by using the RSE Common Properties service. First, create a global namespace to be shared for all users. If you need to create a private namespace without sharing, you need to include the --private option in the commands.

% zowe rse common-properties create ns1
Namespace created successfully.

Next, save the test server configuration with hostname and port number as one JSON object at the path of /test-server in the namespace.

$ zowe rse common-properties set ns1 /test-server '{"hostname" : "www.test.com", "port" : 1234}' --type json
Property set successfully.

You can also save server configuration properties individually. The supported types of the property value are simple string, JSON string, number, and boolean.

To save the production server configuration properties, run the following command:

$ zowe rse common-properties set ns1 /prod-server/hostname "www.prod.com" 
Property set successfully.
$ zowe rse common-properties set ns1 /prod-server/port 443 --type number
Property set successfully.

When setting a property in the namespace, the namespace will be created if it doesn't exist yet. If the property already exists, its value will be overwritten.

To view the namespace content, run the following command:

$ zowe rse common-properties view ns1
{
  "test-server": {
    "hostname": "www.test.com",
    "port": 1234
  },
  "prod-server": {
    "hostname": "www.prod.com",
    "port": 443
  }
}

To view the production server configuration properties, run the following command:

% zowe rse common-properties view ns1 --path /prod-server
{
  "hostname": "www.prod.com",
  "port": 443
}

To view the production server hostname value, run the following command:

% zowe rse common-properties view ns1 --path /prod-server/hostname
www.prod.com

To delete a property from the namespace, run the following command:

% zowe rse common-properties delete ns1 --path /prod-server
Property deleted successfully.

There are other commands to list, copy, rename, and delete namespace. You can check common-properties command help for a complete list of common-properties commands.

% zowe rse common-properties --help