How IBM Health Checker for z/OS uses the dates on policy statements

When you specify a policy statement, you must include a date. The system checks this date against the date that the check was added to the system, the add-check date. If the policy statement date is older than the add-check date, then it means that the policy statement might have been written against an older version of the check and thus might no longer be appropriate. For that reason, the system will not apply a policy statement whose date is older than the check date. We call this a policy date exception.

You can display the checks to which an outdated policy statement would apply using the following MODIFY command:

F hzsproc,DISPLAY,CHECK(*,*),POLICYEXCEPTIONS

You can display the outdated policy statements using the following MODIFY command:

F hzsproc,DISPLAY,POLICY=policyname,OUTDATED

The system will also issue message HZS0420E if it finds a policy with a date older than a check it applies to:

HZS0420E nnn CHECKS HAVE BEEN FOUND FOR WHICH AT LEAST ONE MATCHING
POLICY STATEMENT HAD A DATE OLDER HAN THE CHECK DATE.
THE POLICY STATEMENTS WERE NOT APPLIED TO THOSE CHECKS.
THE FIRST CASE IS
CHECK(checkowner,checkname)
MATCHED BY POLICY STATEMENT stmt.

This message tells the installation to reevaluate the policy statement for the updated check.

To display the add-check date, issue the following command for the check or checks identified by the F hzsproc,DISPLAY,CHECK=(*,*),POLICYEXCEPTIONS command and find the default date in the output:

F hzsproc,DISPLAY,CHECK=(check_owner,check_name),DETAIL

If you want to bypass the comparison of dates between the policy statement and the check, use the DATE(yyyymmdd,NOCHECK) parameter on the policy statement in HZSPRMxx. You might use the NOCHECK parameter, for example, to bypass verification so that you do not have to update the policy statement date for minor changes to a check. The following example shows the use of NOCHECK on a policy statement:

ADDREPLACE POLICY(policyname) STMT(GLOBAL)
           UPDATE CHECK(IBMGRS,GRS_CONVERT_RESERVES)
           ADDCAT (GLOBAL) REASON('GRS_CONVERT_RESERVES in global category')
           DATE(20050901,NOCHECK)

NOCHECK is ignored for:
- POLICY UPDATE with PARM, ACTIVE, INACTIVE, SEVERITY, and/or INTERVAL
- POLICY DELETE
When NOCHECK is processed, the policy statement is applied to the matching check or checks.
When NOCHECK is not processed , and the date for the matching check is equal to or older than the specified policy statement date, the system applies the policy statement. If a matching check date is newer than the policy statement date, the system does not apply the policy statement.

Start of change As an alternative to NOCHECK to indicate "apply this update, no matter what DATE", you can use system symbols to set the DATE to the "day of last Health Checker start" via: DATE(&YR4&LMON&LDAY). End of change