The activities to be performed by an operator during the session originate from various functional areas. These are, for example:
monitoring and control of system behavior
monitoring and control of applications
control of the data communication system
operating peripheral devices
Operating and consoles
The workstations from which the system is operated are referred to as consoles.
When the data communication system is started, the system automatically opens the BCAM application $CONSOLE. User programs that connect to $CONSOLE can also detect operating functions. They are therefore also known as consoles.
The terms “physical console” and “virtual console” are used to distinguish the two types.
Operating can be distributed to several consoles, divided according to functional areas. These can also be virtual consoles as used, for instance, by the software products MAREN and ROBAR in order to distribute operating tasks for tapes.
The OPERATING privilege can be assigned to any user ID with the SECOS command SET-PRIVILEGE. Operating can also take place from a user task of this user ID.
Physical console
Physical consoles were in the past special hardware devices which were connected directly to the BS2000 server.
Today these devices are emulated in the SE Manager or in VM2000. A console screen is emulated on the SE Manager by the KVP (console distribution program), see the “Operation and Administration” manual [57].
Every physical console is assigned an unambiguous mnemonic device name (mnemonic, MN). The emulations in the SE Manager or in VM2000 enable multiple instances to be opened on a physical console.
The entry of commands and the exchange of messages with the BS2000 system can take place from physical consoles, also in operating phases when BCAM is not available in the BS2000 system addressed.
Precisely one of the physical consoles is the main console. It has special rights. By default this is the IPL console from which system initialization took place. The main console property can, however, also be transferred to other physical consoles.
Two operating modes can be set, depending on the system parameter NBCONOPI: if a logon with an operator ID for physical consoles, the so-called operator logon, is required (NBCONOPI=Y), the authorizations of the physical consoles are controlled with the help of operator roles.
If no operator logon for physical consoles is allowed (NBCONOPI=N), the routing codes are assigned via the parameter service (OPR parameter record) or using the ASR command.
An operator ID is any user ID with the OPERATING privilege.
If the operator logon is activated (NBCONOPI=Y), after “System ready” operating from a physical console is only possible after successful logon under an ID with the OPERATING privilege (with SET-LOGON-PARAMETERS).
Before logon, only the SHOW-PENDING-MSG command for displaying open queries is permitted. After successful logon, the operator still has no authorizations in the form of routing codes. These can be obtained with the REQUEST-OPERATOR-ROLE command. The current authorizations of the local ID are displayed with the SHOW-OPERATOR-ROLE command.
To log off from the system enter the EXIT-JOB command. This also implies the release of all routing codes (RELEASE-OPERATOR-ROLE OPERATOR-ROLE=*ALL).
The SYSOPR ID with the OPERATING and STD-PROCESSING privileges is always present in the system.
Virtual consoles/$CONSOLE applications
“Virtual consoles” are user programs which have established a connection to the system application $CONSOLE with the help of DCAM or some other network functions and communicate with the UCON task over this connection. They are therefore also called “$CONSOLE applications”. Depending on the type of logon with $CONSOLE, a distinction is made between “unauthorized” and “authorized” applications.
Virtual consoles can only be operated if BCAM is available in the BS2000 system.
Authorized virtual consoles (as with the MN of physical consoles) have a unique authorization name which can be used to identify them. A distinction is made here between statically generated authorization names and dynamically assigned authorization names.
Certain system operation tasks can be automated with authorized $CONSOLE applications. They are then referred to, for example, as “programmed operator” or “automatic operator”. They can, however, also enable interactive system operation over a network connection.
The $CONSOLE interface for virtual consoles is described in chapter "Automation of operator functions".