I need to SFTP a file from a server to mainframe. While transfering the file it should be in the form of TAPE dataset when recieved to the mainframe. Is that possible?
If what you mean by "in the form of TAPE dataset when recieved to the mainframe" is that the transferred data should go directly to tape rather than DASD, then it may be possible.
If the mainframe is running Dovetailed Technologies Co:Z SFTP server, that product provides mechanisms for allocating mainframe files in a detailed, mainframe, and shop-specific manner.
The z/OS provided sftp is based on the IBM OpenSSH implementation. As such, it does not support MVS datasets as of z/OS 2.4. Assuming by TAPE dataset you're referring to a traditional PS format.
OpenSSH's sftp does not have built-in support for MVS™ data sets. However, there are alternate (indirect) ways to access MVS data sets within sftp.
The above quote from IBM's website can be accessed here
As #cschneid indicated, other products and offerings can provide additional capability but it is not provided with z/OS base operating system.
Related
I get a valid connection with phpseclib but because of the server's requirements I must issue a change remote directory command, $sftp->chdir($dir="//ARTDONE.G9876TT1"), to this directory, (exact format, not the actual name). This change directory command works with Putty's psftp.exe as "CD //ARTDONE.G9876TT1" in windows and with WinSCP's "go to this folder GUI input" but not with PHPSECLIB's sftp object method. Is there something about this directory format that needs to change when using phpseclib? The error message is "permission denied", but I get that same message for any other navigation commands.
Is there a way to issue literal sftp commands with phpseclib sftp?
Or can I use $ssh->exec("CD //ARTDONE.G9876TT1") in some way within the $sftp object that I cannot currently imagine?
The phpseclib appends / to the path in SFTP::chdir call. I believe this is what your server does not like.
Note that SFTP does not even use the concept of a working directory. It's faked locally by phpseclib (and other clients like WinSCP or OpenSSH). So you do not really need to use SFTP::chdir. You might instead use absolute paths in all phpseclib API calls. Alternatively, just setting SFTP::pwd has the same effect as calling SFTP::chdir, except that you will bypass the validation that causes you the troubles.
Accessing z/OS Data Sets via SFTP/FTP
Appending a / surely breaks the access. The OP is accessing an IBM z/OS system running an SFTP server.
IBM z/OS
z/OS is kind a hybrid operating system having a traditional MVS based "kernel" (not really named "kernel" in the doc), and a XPG 4.2 compliant UNIX kernel running in parallel. The UINX side supports file systems with directories and files. The MVS side has a completely different "file system", based on data sets which are named in a non-hierarchal system.
The UNIX file system on z/OS
There is not much to say about the UNIX file system on z/OS. Is it XPG compliant, thus the usage is not different to any other UNIX lik system.
The MVS Data Sets on z/OS
As said above, there is the traditional MVS Data Set based "file system" on z/OS, which is quite different to much you know about files and directories on UNIX system.
Disk Space on z/OS is assigned to MVS data sets. Data sets are named using dot separates names, that can be up to 44 characters long. The parts between two dots can be up to 8 characters long.
Examples:
ARTDONE.G9876TT1
ARTDONE.NEXT.DATA.SET
ARTDONE.NEXT.ANOTHER.ONE
SYS1.LINKLIB
ZUSER.SOURCE.REXX
What seems to be a hierarchy in the first three examples, is not. They are unrelated from the physical point of view, though related in a logical.
Note: Slashed / are not valid in MVS data set names.
SFTP/FTP servers on z/OS
SFTP/FPT servers in z/OS mimic the client side view of directories and files when accessing MVS Data Sets in that the dots in the names are kind of treated like slashes in UNIX. I.e. they support pwd and cd based on the dots.
Example:
cd //ARTDONE.NEXT sets the current working directory to ARTDONE.NEXT. A ls the lists all data sets, of which the name starts with ARTDONE.NEXT, i.e.
ARTDONE.NEXT.DATA.SET
ARTDONE.NEXT.ANOTHER.ONE
but not ARTDONE.G9876TT1.
But how would the server know whether a client side "directory" access is meant to access the UNIX or the MVS data world? The // at the beginning of the parameter passed to the server indicates the server shall switch to the MVS data set world.
Conclusion
client side software should be careful when verifying paths that might be sent to z/OS servers. Accept // as a special indicator. Do not append / in all cases.
More Detailes
There is much more behind this topic than can be described here. Read IBM documentation on z/OS if interested. I would recommend Introduction to the New Mainframe: z/OS Basics as a starter.
I am looking for JCL Script/Procedures in mainframe which can facilitate file transfer from Unix server to Mainframe.I am required to do FTPS for the Outbound Jobs (pull the file from UNIX server to mainframe Host).
Rather than a JCL, just do it a shell script. Here is a good site on using such commands:
https://blog.eduonix.com/shell-scripting/how-to-automate-ftp-transfers-in-linux-shell-scripting/
Once you have that working in the shell script in USS, you should be able to call the shell script from a JCL so you can execute it on a scheduled batch job if you need it.
Kenny's suggestion is fairly reasonable. IBM's documentation on how to write JCL for FTP(S)-related tasks is available in their "z/OS Communications Server: IP User's Guide and Commands" publication, IBM Publication No. SC27-3662. The current revision appears to be SC27-3662-30, but later revisions are possible. You can easily find this publication online, and make sure you don't skip the section beginning with the title "Submitting FTP requests in batch." Make sure you set the security options correctly (of course).
Please note that you're asking about FTPS, i.e. TLS encryption applied to either or both (preferably both) of the FTP channels (control and data). SFTP is another file transfer protocol based on SSH that z/OS also supports.
Another possible approach that you'll fairly often find available on z/OS installations is to use IBM MQ Advanced for z/OS's Managed File Transfer (MFT) feature to retrieve the file(s) using FTPS. As the name suggests, this'll be managed and have at least some error handling capabilities.
Yet another possible approach if you prefer HTTPS protocol is to use the z/OS Client Web Enablement Toolkit's HTTPS protocol enabler to fetch the file. That's a built-in, standard feature in all currently supported z/OS releases, and you can use it from a relatively simple REXX script for example. Details are available here (z/OS 2.3 variant of the documentation):
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.3.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r3.ieac100/ieac1-cwe-http.htm
I have a requirement to perform checksum (for data integrity) for SFTP. I was hoping this could be done during the SFTP file transfer - I realize this could be product dependent (FYI: using CLEO VLTrader), but was wondering if this is customary?
I am also looking for alternative data integrity checking options that are as good (or better) than using a checksum algorithm. Thanks!
With the SFTP, running over an encrypted SSH session, there's negligible chance the file contents could get corrupted while transferring. The SSH itself does data integrity verification.
So unless the contents gets corrupted, when reading the local file or writing the remote file, you can be pretty sure that the file was uploaded correctly, if no error is reported. That implies that a risk of data corruption as about the same as if you were copying the files between two local drives.
If you would not consider it necessary to verify data integrity after copying the files from one local drive to another, then I do not think, you need to verify integrity after an SFTP transfer, and vice versa.
If you want to test explicitly anyway:
While there's the check-file extension to the SFTP protocol to calculate a remote file checksum, it's not widely supported. Particularly it's not supported by the most widespread SFTP server implementation, the OpenSSH. See What SFTP server implementations support check-file extension.
Not many clients/client libraries support it either. You didn't specify, what client/library you are using, so I cannot provide more details.
For details about some implementations, see:
Python Paramiko: How to check if Paramiko successfully uploaded a file to an SFTP server?
.NET WinSCP: Verify checksum of a remote file against a local file over SFTP/FTP protocol
What SFTP server implementations support check-file extension
Other than that, your only option is to download the file back (if uploading) and compare locally.
If you have a shell access to the server, you can of course try to run some shell checksum command (e.g. sha256sum) over a separate shell/SSH connection (or the "exec" channel) and parse the results. But that's not an SFTP solution anymore.
Examples:
Calculate hash of file with Renci SSH.NET in VB.NET
Comparing MD5 of downloaded files against files on an SFTP server in Python
We have a IBM Host System Z sitting in our cellar. Now the issue is that i have no clue about Mainframes!!! (It's not USS btw.)
The Problem: How can i transfer a file from the host system to a windows machine.
Usually on UNIX systems i would just install and ssh daemon and connect to it via. a program called winscp. After that transfer the file in binary so that it does not convert something (Ultraedit and other Editors can handle this).
With the host system it seems to be a bit difficult as the original format from IBM is EBCDIC and i have no idea if there is a state of the art SFTP server program for the host. Could anybody be so kind and enlighten me? From my current expirience with IT there must be a state of the art sftp connection to that system? I appreciate any help/hints/solutions.
Thank you,
O.S
If the mainframe "sitting in [your] cellar" is running z/OS then it has Unix System Services installed. You can't have z/OS without it.
There is an SFTP package available (for free) for z/OS.
You can test to see about Unix System Services by firing up a 3270 emulator going to ISPF option 3.17, putting a forward slash (/) in the Pathname field and pressing the mainframe Enter key. Another way would be to key OMVS at a TSO READY prompt, which will start up a 3270-based Unix shell.
It is possible that USS is simply not available to you; if you're running any supported release of z/OS then USS is present. There could be concerns about supporting something outside a particular group,
Or, depending on what OS you have running on your System z, it's possible you don't have z/OS. You could have z/VM, you could have zLinux, you could have TPF. However, if you're running zLinux, you have linux, which has sftp installed, and which uses ASCII, not EBCDIC.
As cschneid says, however, if you have z/OS, you have USS. TCP/IP, among other things, won't run without it. Also note that z/OS TCP/IP has an FTP server, so you can connect that way if the FTP server is set up. If security is an issue, FTPS is supported, although it's painful to set up. With the native FTP server, you can convert from EBCDIC to ASCII when you're doing the transfer. There's also an NFS server available. And SMB as well, I believe.
And there's an FTP client available as well, so you could FTP from z/OS to your system, if you wanted to.
Maybe a better thing to do would explain what you're trying to do with the data, and what the data is, in general. You can edit files directly on the mainframe, using either TSO, ISPF, or OMVS editors. There are a lot of data types that the mainframe supports that you're not going to be able to handle on a non-z system unless you go through an export process. I'm not really clear on whether you want to convert the file to ASCII when you transfer it or not.
While the others are correct that all recent releases of z/OS have USS built-in, there's quite a bit of setup work that needs to be done in order for individual users to have access to USS capabilities like SFTP. Out of the box, you get USS "minimal mode" that just has enough of USS to support the TCP/IP stack and so forth. USS "full function mode" requires setup:
HFS filesystems need to be allocated
Your security package needs to be manage UIDs/GIDs for your users
etc etc etc
Still, with these details and with nothing more than the software you're entitled to as part of your z/OS license, you can certainly run SFTP and all the other UNIX style network services you're used to.
A good place to start is the UNIX Services Planning guide: http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/bpxzb2c0.pdf
The Cloudera documentation says that Hadoop does not support on disk encryption. Would it be possible to use hardware encrypted hard drives with Hadoop?
eCryptfs can be used to do per-file encryption on each individual Hadoop node. It's rather tedious to setup, but it certainly can be done.
Gazzang offers a turnkey commercial solution built on top of eCryptfs to secure "big data" through encryption, and partners with several of the Hadoop and NoSQL vendors.
Gazzang's cloud-based Encryption Platform for Big Data helps
organizations transparently encrypt data stored in the cloud or on
premises, using advanced key management and process-based access control
lists, and helping meet security and compliance requirements.
Full disclosure: I am one of authors and current maintainers of eCryptfs. I am also Gazzang's Chief Architect and a lead developer.
If you have mounted a file system on the drive then Hadoop can use the drive. HDFS stores its data in the normal OS file system. Hadoop will not know whether the drive is encrypted or not and it will not care.
Hadoop doesn't directly support encryption, though a compression codec can be used used for encryption/decryption. Here are more details about encryption and HDFS.
Regarding h/w based encryption, I think Hadoop should be able to work on it. As Spike mentioned, HDFS is like any other Java application and stores it's data in the normal OS file systems. FYI, MapR uses Direct I/O for better HDFS performance.
See also Intel's Rhino. Not open source yet...
https://github.com/intel-hadoop/project-rhino/
https://hadoop.intel.com/pdfs/IntelEncryptionforHadoopSolutionBrief.pdf