zTron is a lightweight automation and logging mechanism for z/OS that processes pipelines of tasks using common interfaces that require minimum installation and configuration. These tasks can specify the use of traditional z/OS interfaces like TSO, ISPF, and JCL, as well as open source interfaces based on Unix and Linux. The goal is to make the framework familiar to Linux and z/OS users alike.
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Create a dev/test virtual environment with:
- build
- wheel
- pytest
- pyyaml
These can come from pypi.
python3 -m venv devenv source devenv/bin/activate pip install -i https://pypi.python.org/simple build wheel pytest pyyaml -
Perform the build from devenv
pip wheel -i https://pypi.python.org/simple --wheel-dir=dist .
pytest 2>&1 | tee test_log.txt
zTron is implemented in Python and shell script, and passes tasks to different z/OS facilities through the ISPF Gateway. There are no other dependencies to install or configure. For systems that have Jupyter notebooks installed, zTron also offers a web-based interface.
zTron requires Python 3.6 or later, and a Unix or Linux shell. The standard
Unix System Services (USS) shell (/bin/sh) works well, as does the Bash
shell if that is available. Bash and Python can be installed through one of
several different offerings available on z/OS.
The ISPF gateway uses an interface called the Common Event Adapter to run TSO commands and ISPF functions from USS. There is some environmental setup required on the part of the user before zTron can be deployed. See the common setup instructions for more details.
zTron has both a CLI and an optional web-based interface implemented using Jupyter notebooks.
The zTron command looks like this:
[sh] /u/bostian> ztron --help
ztron - Execute a pipeline of commands to implement a workflow
usage: ztron -p <pipeline> -c <config> -l <logpath> -v <verbosity> -h
-p | --pipeline: path to the command pipeline
-c | --config: path to the configuration
-l | --log_lvl: logging level (info|warn|err|trace)
-h | --help: show help
If you have Jupyter available in your installation, you have the option of using the Jupyter notebook interface to zTron
- Python modules and imports