Steps for managing policy changes

Place your new policy flat file in the staging library, back up your current production policy flat file, and then replace the production copy with the new copy.

Procedure

As shown in Figure 1, perform the following steps to activate changes to your policies:

Transfer the policy flat file to the staging library. hlq.TCPPARMS.POLTRANS.SYSA.TCPIP1(xyz)
Back up the current production policy flat file. Copy hlq.TCPPARMS.POLPROD.SYSA.TCPIP1(xyz) to hlq.TCPPARMS.POLBACK.SYSA.TCPIP1(xyz)
Copy the new policy flat file into production. Copy hlq.TCPPARMS.POLTRANS.SYSA.TCPIP1(xyz) to hlq.TCPPARMS.POLPROD.SYSA.TCPIP1(xyz)

Results

Figure 1. Activating changes to your policies

Example of managing the policy changes in the four steps that are described in the surrounding information

Policy Agent reads the definitions from the production location, as shown by step 4 in Figure 1.

Tips:

If the changes you make are in error, you can back out the changes by copying your original production definitions from the recovery location to the production location and restarting your policy infrastructure components.
In your procedure to move objects from POLTRANS to POLPROD, you might have to include a utility step to change location references from POLTRANS to POLPROD.
Some configuration files might include references to other configuration file locations or policy definition file locations. Those locations are initially the POLTRANS location.
You can override names suggested by the Configuration Assistant and choose to use other names.
If you are using the Configuration Assistant, you are prompted for the base location for a z/OS® image. For each configuration file, policy definition file, sample RACF® job, sample JCL procedure, and so on, the Configuration Assistant suggests a name to serve as the file name in the z/OS UNIX file system directories, or as the member name in the PDS or PDSE libraries.
Specifying an EBCDIC code page that matches your default country settings makes it easier to browse the files with ISPF.
Most policy-related configuration files and all the policy definition files support an optional Codepage parameter that you can use to indicate the EBCDIC code page in which the contents are encoded. When you use the Configuration Assistant, you specify the EBCDIC code page when you define the base location for a z/OS image. The Configuration Assistant transfers configuration files and policy definitions files to that z/OS image using the specified code page and includes the Codepage option in the files. The following example shows the initial section of a Policy Agent configuration file that uses the Codepage option:
```
## Configuration Assistant, 2008.11.25 09:33:12
## Pagent Configuration for system MVS098
## Target Codepage = IBM-278
TcpImage TCPCS 'USER1.TCPPARMS.MVS098.TCPCS(STKPAG)' FLUSH NOPURGE 360
Codepage  IBM-278
## Loglevel 127         ## default 31
```