Zowe CLI profiles

Using the command-line

The command-line is a conventional way to run and/or compose programs, especially if you come from a Linux or macOS background. Despite its usefulness, it can become tedious when large numbers of command-line arguments have to be entered and re-entered every time a program is executed. Zowe CLI profiles eliminate a lot of this tedium by collecting sequences of rarely-changing command-line arguments into just one argument - the name of a Zowe CLI profile - which is used as proxy whenever the original longer sequence needs to be subsequently invoked.

Instead of having to type, say, six command-line arguments that describe a collection of z/OS connection details, you only need to type one, the name and type of the profile that stores the full set.

Examples of Zowe CLI profiles in action

As an example, a Zowe CLI z/OSMF profile aggregates the configuration details required to establish CLI z/OSMF sessions with the mainframe - such sessions are necessary to submit the batch jobs that deploy and undeploy CICS bundles. You can create a Zowe CLI z/OSMF profile with a command like:

zowe profiles create zosmf-profile myprofile --host zos124 --port 1443 --user ibmuser --password myp4ss --reject-unauthorized false

This creates a Zowe CLI z/OSMF profile called myprofile that connects to port 1443 (or, in your situation, such port as your own z/OSMF server is known to run on) on host zos124 using the credentials ibmuser and myp4ss and allowing self-signed certificates. That’s six command-line arguments stored as a collection under the single profile called myprofile.

Now you can issue further Zowe commands that reference the profile you created earlier. For example, to check the health of your connectivity to z/OSMF you might enter:

zowe zosmf check status --zosmf-profile myprofile

Zowe CLI profiles really come into their own when you decide to deploy your Node.js application(s) using push bundle. Using three profiles, you might issue:

zowe push bundle --name EXAMPLE --target-directory /u/example/bundles --zosmf-profile testplex --cics-deploy-profile devcics --ssh-profile ssh

This is a much more economical and concise command-line than if were it necessary to enumerate all of the individual arguments from all of the profiles.

As suggested above, to deploy a Node.js application from your workstation to one or more CICS® regions, you will need to set up a minimum of three Zowe CLI profiles (optionally more if you wish to, say, deploy to multiple hosts) - you can read how to do it in detail here.

Ultimately, you are not required to use Zowe CLI profiles - you can specify all of the required command-line arguments explicitly - but they reduce the burden of typing when you are issuing commands that require many arguments.

Order of precedence

The Zowe CLI lets you define arguments and options for commands in multiple ways, with the following order of precedence:

1. Command-line
2. Environment variables
3. Profiles

Therefore by setting options in a profile they will become your default and you do not need to repeat them on the command-line unless you wish to override them. Further details are in Understanding command option order of precedence.

Where are Zowe CLI profiles stored?

When you create a Zowe CLI profile, a representation is written to a file on your local workstation in plain text. This file may contain sensitive information such as user IDs and passwords and therefore needs to be secured. Further details are in Creating Zowe CLI profiles.

• Windows
• Linux
• macOS

When you become familiar with their simple syntax, you can hand-edit these files, instead of regenerating the corresponding profiles.