VSAM RLS record management requests must be issued in PRIMARY ASC mode and cannot be issued in home, secondary, or AR ASC mode. The user RPL, EXLST, ACB, must be addressable from primary. Open must have been issued from the same primary address space. VSAM RLS record management request task must be the same as the task that opened the ACB, or the task that opened the ACB must be in the task hierarchy (i.e., the record management task was attached by that task that opened the ACB, or by a task that was attached by the task that opened that ACB). VSAM RLS record management requests must not be issued in SRB mode, and must not have functional recovery routine (FRR) in effect.

If the record management request is issued in cross memory mode, then the caller must be in supervisor state and must specify that an RLSWAIT exit is associated with the request (RPLWAITX = ON). The request must be synchronous.

The RLSWAIT exit is optional for non-cross memory mode callers.

The RLSWAIT exit, if specified, is entered at the beginning of the request and VSAM processes the request asynchronously under a separate execution unit. VSAM RLS does not enter the RLSWAIT exit for post processing.

VSAM assumes that the ECB supplied with the request is addressable form both home and primary, and that the key of the ECB is the same as the key of the record management caller.