Creating and maintaining IBM Health Checker for z/OS policies

An IBM Health Checker for z/OS policy lets you manage checks by applying persistent changes to checks. A policy is the place to put any check changes you want to make persistent and to have applied to checks you add in the future. Starting with z/OS® V1R8, you can create multiple policies and switch between them. (Systems at the z/OS V1R4 through R7 with IBM® Health Checker for z/OS support installed can have only one policy per system.)

An IBM Health Checker for z/OS policy simply consists of a set of policy statements in an HZSPRMxx member or members currently in use for a system. The system applies the information in your active IBM Health Checker for z/OS policy to all existing checks and to any new checks you add. IBM Health Checker for z/OS processes information from the active policy every time checks are added or refreshed, every time you activate a new policy, and whenever you restart IBM Health Checker for z/OS.

When we use the term IBM Health Checker for z/OS restart, we mean either:

Restarting IBM Health Checker for z/OS after it terminates
Starting of IBM Health Checker for z/OS on a subsequent IPL

To ensure that a policy is remembered and applied at IBM Health Checker for z/OS restarts, specify the HZSPRMxx members containing the policy in the IBM Health Checker for z/OS procedure, hzsproc and use the following command to activate the policy you wish to make the current policy:

F hzsproc,ACTIVATE,POLICY=policyname

If you have multiple policies, you can switch between them using the same F hzsproc,ACTIVATE,POLICY=policyname command.

On each policy statement, you update check values for a check or set of checks, specifying updates that you wish to apply permanently. You can also use policy statements to permanently delete checks or to remove another policy statement.

ADD POLICY creates a new policy statement.
ADDREPLACE POLICY specifies that the system either add or replace the following policy statement, as appropriate. If the policy statement is new, the system will add it. If the policy statement exists already, the system will replace it with the one specified.
REMOVE POLICY removes an existing policy statement.
Use the UPDATE option on your policy statement to update check values.

If you do not specify a policy name on your policy statement, the system assigns the statement to the default policy name, which is DEFAULT.

For complete syntax, see Syntax and parameters for HZSPRMxx and MODIFY hzsproc.

When you create an IBM Health Checker for z/OS policy and specify that the system use it, the system applies the values immediately to the existing checks. Then, when you add new checks that meet the policy statement criteria, the values will be applied to those checks as well.

Use the following procedure to create an IBM Health Checker for z/OS policy that persists across restarts:

Specify the policy statements in an HZSPRMxx member or members. If you do not specify a policy name when you define a policy statement, the system assigns a default policy name of DEFAULT to the statement.
To add the HZSPRMxx member(s) immediately to the list of parmlib members that IBM Health Checker for z/OS processes values from, issue the F hzsproc,ADD PARMLIB command.
Activate the policy that you want as the current active policy using the F hzsproc,ACTIVATE POLICY=policy command. If you do not activate a policy, the system uses policy statements assigned to policy DEFAULT, if there are any. Otherwise, if you do not activate a policy and have no policy statements assigned to policy DEFAULT, you will not have a policy in effect.
The system applies the values in the active policy to the specified active checks immediately, and re-applies them every time the checks are added or refreshed until an IBM Health Checker for z/OS restart.
Refresh all the checks, so that only the values for the current active policy are in use. Use the F hzsproc,REFRESH,CHECK=(*,*). See Some finer points of how policy values are applied for why this is necessary.
To make sure your policy persists across IBM Health Checker for z/OS restarts, specify the HZSPRMxx members containing your policy in either:
- The START hzsproc command in the COMMNDxx parmlib member
- The IBM Health Checker for z/OS procedure, hzsproc
See Specifying the HZSPRMxx members you want the system to use.

We'll cover the following policy topics: