On Tue, 19 Dec 2023 10:12:21 +0200, ITschak Mugzach <[email protected]> wrote:

>There are some MVS commands that are hard to understand how and why they
>were created.

You mean "console commands" because MVS is only 1 product that implements 
console commands. Each subsystem on the SSI can optionally receive commands 
(e.g. VTAM v net and d net). Additionally, other products like TCP don't need 
the SSI and implement the modify command.
 
> What bothers me is the fact that the input of the commands
>that modify MVS behavior allows input from private dataset. 
> I wonder why IBM allows such a scenario.

There are various benefits to specifying datasets. The most important is to 
avoid an outage (e.g. IPL or restarting a product to correct a problem), 
Another benefit is the change is temporary to a non-production dataset.

>How frequent do you use these commands (if ever).

As a product developer dealing with customers, I've dealt with customers 
production environments ranging from very secure to very flexible. It's rare 
that these commands are needed. A few customers don't want to touch production 
datasets and prefer to make temporary changes. 

Does a company consider temporary changes thru the use of a temporary dataset 
any more risky than modifying production datasets or using tools like Omegamon 
to make those temporary changes without the use of a dataset?

>*SETLOAD* allows on-the-fly change of parmlib concatenation using a dataset

I would expect specifying a dataset on SETLOAD would be extremely rare and only 
needed if multiple members are affected. For instance, you have an OEM product 
that uses PARMLIB for configuration options that you need implemented outside 
the regular maint window.

>TCPCIP *OBEY* command allows specification of TCPIP configuration from a 
>private library

TCP configuration files can be datasets, PDS members or UNIX files. For those 
customers that use sequential datasets, specifying a DSN is the best option 
because you're dealing with a lesser experienced customer who hasn't planned 
for backup and changing TCP config.

> and how do you identify the use 

Identifying console commands that allow specifying datasets requires you review 
all products that support console commands. Job scheduling software may allow 
specifying a dataset on the demand request. Automation by local sysprogs can 
intercept commands, modify them or process the command. System monitors can 
sometimes allow DSN. Identifying where DSN is allowed requires you put in the 
effort because there won't be a single document telling you where DSN is 
allowed.

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