CLI commands

You can -t (selectively terminate a resource) and then -x (refresh the resources file). This will refresh only resources that are not running at that time.

The resource manager writes log information to the /var/log/messages file (via the Linux syslog logging facility).

The resource manager automatically uses TCP/IP port 555 to communicate with other elements of FLEX-ES, whether there is a single Server or there are multiple Servers involved.

Every S/390 emulated system instance has an associated main console for FLEX-ES control commands. This is a virtual console that is not directly connected to a real terminal. The commands it processes are the CLI commands, some of which are described here. A program named flexescli is used to communicate with the virtual main console. flexescli works from a Linux command line, and you can start as many flexescli instances as you like (and work via FLEX-ES networking if you have multiple FLEX-ES servers). The flexescli program sends commands to a main console and returns the results.

In discussions we typically ignore the details of the flexescli and main console interaction and describe operations in terms of commands to flexescli. Also, for our ThinkPad/EFS discussion, we usually assume that only a single S/390 is being emulated at any given time.

CLI commands can be entered two ways:

You can start the flexescli program in interactive mode and then issue CLI commands directly at the flexes prompt provided by the CLI program.

You can use ECHO to pipe a command to flexescli. In this case, it executes the command and terminates.

The syntax for the flexescli command is:

# flexescli IPname systemname

If the flexescli program is not in the current PATH, you would need to issue the full path name for it. The IPname can be an IP address, a host name that is resolved by DNS, or a local name (in /etc/hosts). The standard IPname localhost is used to reference the local IP loopback address. The systemname is the name of a syscf file used to start an emulated S/390. In our examples, this is S10A.syscf. (The syscf suffix is omitted for the flexescli command.) The flexescli program must always be directed to a specific S/390 instance (even if there is only one running).

An example of executing a single command through the CLI interface might be:

#pwd

#echo ‘ipl a80 0a8200’ flexescli localhost S10A

# ...	--------------				+-- S/390	system name (S10A.syscf)
				+	----------- local	system (TCP/IP loopback)
			+	---------------------	the flexescli command
		+	--------------------------		the pipe operator
	+------------------------------------				CLI command to be executed

The flexescli program senses whether input is waiting for it in a pipe; if so, it executes the waiting command and quits. If started this way:

#flexescli localhost S10A flexes>

it issues a flexes prompt and waits for commands. It will run until it receives a quit command.

82S/390 PID: ThinkPad Enabled for S/390