Installing Liberty interim fixes and fix packs on z/OS operating systems

Fix packs contain bundled service to bring WebSphere® Application Server for z/OS® Liberty up to a new level. Interim fixes provide corrective service for specific known problems. You can use IBM® Installation Manager to update the offering with the fixes that are available for your service level of WebSphere Application Server for z/OS Liberty.

Before you begin

Important: Liberty on z/OS supports Java™ SE 8.

As of version 22.0.0.9, Liberty on z/OS supports Java SE 11.

As of version 23.0.0.12, Liberty on z/OS supports Java SE 17.

When support ends for your Java SE version, you must upgrade to a supported version.

• The Liberty end of support date for Java SE 8 is October 2026, fix pack 26.0.0.10.
• The Liberty end of support date for Java SE 11 is October 2026, 26.0.0.10.
• The Liberty end of support date for Java SE 17 is October 2027, 27.0.0.10.

For more information, see Removal notices. After support is removed, the Liberty kernel is recompiled and can no longer run with the removed Java version.

Contact the IBM Software Support Center for information about updates for WebSphere Application Server Liberty for z/OS. For more information about upgrades, see the WebSphere Application Server for z/OS: Program Directory. The most current information is available from the IBM Software Support Center and Fix Central.

When you install a fix pack, Installation Manager automatically reapplies any installed interim fixes if they apply to the updated fix pack level. Interim fixes that do not apply, such as if the updated fix pack contains the fix, are uninstalled. In some cases, Installation Manager must uninstall an interim fix that you must manually reapply. For example, you might update to a fix pack that does not contain the fix and requires an updated interim fix level. Installation Manager notifies you if any interim fixes must be manually reapplied. You can verify which interim fixes are installed by running the productInfo version --ifixes command.

You must have IBM Installation Manager Version 1.8.5 or later.

Through version 19.0.0.8, the minimum acceptable version of IBM Installation Manager is 1.8.5.

As of version 19.0.0.9, the minimum acceptable version of IBM Installation Manager is 1.9.0.

If you want to install Liberty assets from local directory-based repositories or an instance of the Liberty Asset Repository Service, configure the repositories. For more information about the Liberty asset repositories, see Installing assets using Installation Manager.

1. Use Installation Manager to apply the required maintenance to your dataset and file-system structure.
   1. For a list of fixes that are available for WebSphere Application Server for z/OS Liberty and specific information about each fix, perform the following actions.
      1. Go to Fix Central.
      2. Click Find product.
      3. Select WebSphere Liberty as the product group.
      4. Select the version of the product to be updated.
      5. Select z/OS as the platform, and click Continue.
      6. Select Browse for fixes, and click Continue.
      7. Click More Information under each fix to view information about the fix.
   2. Update WebSphere Application Server for z/OS Liberty with the fixes using one of the following procedures.
      • Access the live service repository that contains the fixes and use web-based updating.

        Use Installation Manager on your local system to update WebSphere Application Server for z/OS Liberty with the interim fixes from the live web-based service repositories.

        • For the live service repositories, use the same URLs as those used for the generally available product-offering repositories during installation. These URLs are listed in Online product repositories for Liberty offerings.
        • These locations do not contain web pages that you can access using a web browser. They are remote web-based repository locations that you specify for Installation Manager so that it can maintain the offering.
        To install a fix from a service repository, perform the following actions:

        1. Mount the product file system, read and write, at the path at which it was originally mounted with Installation Manager.
        2. If you do not already have Installation Manager credential-storage and master-password files containing your IBM software user ID and password, create files that will allow you to access the repository.
           Note: These are the credentials that you use to access protected IBM software websites.
           Create a credential-storage file and master-password file:

           imutilsc saveCredential 
             -secureStorageFile storage_file -masterPasswordFile master_password_file
             -userName IBM_software_ID
             -userPassword IBM_software_password
             -url repository_URL_or_path

           Tip: When creating a credential-storage file, append /repository.config at the end of the repository URL location if the imutilsc command is unable to find the URL that is specified.
        3. From the Installation Manager user ID, perform the following actions:
           1. Change to the Installation_Manager_binaries/eclipse/tools directory, where Installation_Manager_binaries is the installation root directory for the Installation Manager.
           2. Install the fix.
              To install an interim fix, use this command:

              imcl install fix_name
                -installationDirectory offering_installation_location
                -repositories repository_URL_or_path
                -secureStorageFile storage_file -masterPasswordFile master_password_file

              To install a fix pack, use this command:

              imcl install offering_ID_offering_version,optional_feature_ID
                -installationDirectory offering_installation_location
                -properties user.useLibertyRepository=[true|false],user.addon=addon_shortOrSymbolicName,user.feature=feature_shortOrSymbolicName
                -repositories repository_URL_or_path,Liberty_asset_repository_URL_or_path
                -secureStorageFile storage_file -masterPasswordFile master_password_file
                -acceptLicense
              

              Tips:

              • The offering_ID is the offering ID that is listed in Liberty product offerings for supported operating systems.
              • The offering_version, which optionally can be attached to the offering ID with an underscore, is a specific version of the offering to install (16.0.20160503_0200 for example).
                • If offering_version is not specified, the latest version of the offering and all interim fixes for that version are installed.
                • If offering_version is specified, the specified version of the offering and no interim fixes for that version are installed.
                The offering version can be found attached to the end of the offering ID with an underscore when you run the following command against the repository:

                imcl listAvailablePackages -repositories repository_URL_or_path

              • You can also specify none, recommended or all with the -installFixes argument to indicate which interim fixes you want installed with the offering.
                • If the offering version is not specified, the -installFixes option defaults to all.
                • If the offering version is specified, the -installFixes option defaults to none.
              • For fix packs:
                • When you update Liberty with a fix pack, all installed Liberty add-ons and features are also updated. You can install additional add-ons and features by specifying them on the user.addon and user.feature properties, as shown in the following example. Note that the feature short names or symbolic names are separated by double commas:

                  ./imcl install com.ibm.websphere.liberty.zOS,embeddablecontainer             
                  -properties user.addon=extendedPackage-1.0,user.feature=portlet-2.0,,portletserving-2.0
                  -installationDirectory /InstallationManager/products/WebSphere/Liberty/level -acceptLicense
                  -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.liberty.zOS,https://your_onprem_asset_repo_url,/usr/lpp/LocalAssetRepo,/usr/lpp/LocalAssetRepo2.zip
                  -sharedResourcesDirectory /InstallationManager/sharedResources
                  -showProgress

                  You can install assets from instances of the Liberty Asset Repository Service or local directory-based repositories with or without internet access. Add the repository URL, directory path, or archive file path on the -repositories parameter. These repositories are accessed in the order that they are specified. For more information about these asset repositories, see Installing assets using Installation Manager. To install assets from the IBM WebSphere Liberty Repository, you must have access to the internet. To enable access to the Liberty Repository, on the -properties parameter, set the user.useLibertyRepository option to true. The Liberty Repository is the last of the repositories that are accessed during installation.
                • To install the embeddable EJB container and JPA client, specify the optional embeddablecontainer feature after the offering ID, separated by a comma.

                  The embeddable EJB container is a Java archive (JAR) file that you can use to run enterprise beans in a standalone Java Platform, Standard Edition (SE) environment. You can run enterprise beans by using this embeddable container outside the application server. The embeddable EJB container is a part of the EJB 3.1 specification and is primarily used for unit testing enterprise beans business logic.

                  The JPA client can be used with the embeddable EJB container to provide Java Persistence API capability in a Java SE environment.

           3. Optional: List all installed packages to verify the installation:

              imcl listInstalledPackages -long

      • Download the files that contain the fixes from Fix Central and use local updating.
        You can download compressed files that contain the fixes from Fix Central. Each compressed fix file contains an Installation Manager repository for the fix and usually has a .zip extension. After downloading the fix files, you can use Installation Manager to update WebSphere Application Server for z/OS Liberty with the fixes.

        1. To download the fixes, perform the following actions:
           1. Go to Fix Central.
           2. Click Find product.
           3. Select WebSphere Liberty as the product group.
           4. Select the version of the offering to be updated.
           5. Select z/OS as the platform, and click Continue.
           6. Select Browse for fixes, and click Continue.
           7. Select the fixes that you want to download, and click Continue.
           8. Select your download options, and click Continue.
           9. Click I agree to agree to the terms and conditions.
           10. Click Download now to download the fixes.
           11. Transfer the compressed fix files in binary format to the z/OS system on which they will be installed.
           12. If you are installing a fix pack, extract the compressed repository files to a directory on your system.
        2. To install a fix from a downloaded file, perform the following actions:
           1. Mount the product file system, read and write, at the path at which it was originally mounted with Installation Manager.
           2. From the Installation Manager user ID, perform the following actions:
              1. Change to the Installation_Manager_binaries/eclipse/tools directory, where Installation_Manager_binaries is the installation root directory for the Installation Manager.
              2. Install the fix.
                 To install an interim fix, use this command:

                 imcl install fix_name 
                    -installationDirectory offering_installation_location
                    -repositories compressed_file

                 To install a fix pack, use this command:

                 imcl install offering_ID_offering_version,optional_feature_ID
                   -installationDirectory offering_installation_location
                   -repositories location_of_expanded_files
                   -acceptLicense
                 

                 Tips:

                 • The offering_ID is the offering ID that is listed in Liberty product offerings for supported operating systems.
                 • The offering_version, which optionally can be attached to the offering ID with an underscore, is a specific version of the offering to install (16.0.2.20160503_0200 for example).
                   • If offering_version is not specified, the latest version of the offering and all interim fixes for that version are installed.
                   • If offering_version is specified, the specified version of the offering and no interim fixes for that version are installed.
                   The offering version can be found attached to the end of the offering ID with an underscore when you run the following command against the repository:

                   imcl listAvailablePackages -repositories repository_URL_or_path

                 • You can also specify none, recommended or all with the -installFixes argument to indicate which interim fixes you want installed with the offering.
                   • If the offering version is not specified, the -installFixes option defaults to all.
                   • If the offering version is specified, the -installFixes option defaults to none.
                 • For fix packs:
                   • When you update Liberty with a fix pack, all installed Liberty add-ons and features are also updated. You can install additional add-ons and features by specifying them on the user.addon and user.feature properties, as shown in the following example. Note that the feature short names or symbolic names are separated by double commas:

                     ./imcl install com.ibm.websphere.liberty.zOS,embeddablecontainer             
                     -properties user.addon=extendedPackage-1.0,user.feature=portlet-2.0,,portletserving-2.0
                     -installationDirectory /InstallationManager/products/WebSphere/Liberty/level -acceptLicense
                     -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.liberty.zOS,https://your_onprem_asset_repo_url,/usr/lpp/LocalAssetRepo,/usr/lpp/LocalAssetRepo2.zip
                     -sharedResourcesDirectory /InstallationManager/sharedResources
                     -showProgress

                     You can install assets from instances of the Liberty Asset Repository Service or local directory-based repositories with or without internet access. Add the repository URL, directory path, or archive file path on the -repositories parameter. These repositories are accessed in the order that they are specified. For more information about these asset repositories, see Installing assets using Installation Manager. To install assets from the IBM WebSphere Liberty Repository, you must have access to the internet. To enable access to the Liberty Repository, on the -properties parameter, set the user.useLibertyRepository option to true. The Liberty Repository is the last of the repositories that are accessed during installation.
                   • To install the embeddable EJB container and JPA client, specify the optional embeddablecontainer feature after the offering ID, separated by a comma.

                     The embeddable EJB container is a Java archive (JAR) file that you can use to run enterprise beans in a standalone Java Platform, Standard Edition (SE) environment. You can run enterprise beans by using this embeddable container outside the application server. The embeddable EJB container is a part of the EJB 3.1 specification and is primarily used for unit testing enterprise beans business logic.

                     The JPA client can be used with the embeddable EJB container to provide Java Persistence API capability in a Java SE environment.

              3. Optional: List all installed packages to verify the installation:

                 imcl listInstalledPackages -long

   For more information on updating WebSphere Application Server for z/OS Liberty, see Updating and uninstalling Liberty on z/OS.

2. Remount the product file system at its production location.

   The file system should normally be mounted read-only.

3. Perform any other migration actions as instructed in fix or APAR cover letters.
4. Start your server(s) to complete any necessary post-installation tasks.

   At server startup, the post-installer will run automatically against each node in order to update the configuration file system to the new service level.

   Note: In Network Deployment cells, the deployment manager node must be at the same or a later service level than the cell's application server nodes. You must ensure that the deployment manager node is upgraded to the new service level.