zigi is the z/OS ISPF Git Interface and is designed for use by the experienced ISPF developer who needs to interact with git hosted source. The installation of zigi requires that you have downloaded the zigi installer, which you obviously have or you wouldn't be reading this.
The next requirement is to install a ported version of git for z/OS.
Currently there are two ported versions of git. One from Rocket Software and the other from the z/OS Open Tools project. Below is a short explanation of how to install git from each:
Point your browser to https://www.rocketsoftware.com/ and create an account. Then install the Rocket installer miniconda and follow their instructions.
Then download git, bash, gzip and perl and bring all those files to one directory in USS.
Then head on over to https://gist.github.com/wizardofzos/897b243d4cbe9fbc471ec1396fbbe174 and stick that installer in the same directory as the things you downloaded from rocket.
Run that script.
You should now have git installed on you Mainframe.
Clone this repository and run the installer via:
git clone git@github.com:zigi/zigi.git
cd zigi
./zginstall.rex
or
Be sure to follow the instructions provided by Rocket Software to update the PATH, LIBPATH, MANPATH, etc. in your /etc/profile.
The other available port of git is from the z/OS Open Tools project. They provide an installer called zopen which you will need to download from (https://zosopentools.org/#/Guides/QuickStart)[https://zosopentools.org/#/Guides/QuickStart].
Once the zopen installer is installed you will need execute the zopen-config script found in the installation directory mountpoint/etc. At that point you can run open install git and follow the prompts to install git along with any pre-reqs and co-reqs.
IBM Open Enterprise Foundation for z/OS provides a comprehensive suite of open source UNIX-based development tools that are enabled to run natively on z/OS. These tools and libraries are designed to enhance the development and deployment experience on the z/OS platform.
Included with your existing IBM z/OS Service and Support at no additional charge.
Product information, including an easier way to plan and order, prerequisites, other products, and more, is available on or before general availability in IBM Shopz for the following programs:
- IBM Open Enterprise Foundation for z/OS 1.1 (5655-OEF)
- IBM Open Enterprise Foundation for z/OS Subscription and Support (S&S) (5655-EFS)
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/oefzos
To make the z/OS Open Tools installed tools available you will need to update your /etc/profile to execute that zopen-config script.
Add . ./mountpoint/etc/zopen-config to your `/etc/profile and your good to go.
Unless you copied, moved, or remounted the installed directory so a new mount point in which case change mountpoint as appropriate and update the zopen-config statement ZOPEN_ROOTFS= to point to the root where you installed/copied/mounted it.
Example: ZOPEN_ROOTFS="/isv/zopen"
Since you wish to use this with zigi there is one more step.
The zigi interface to z/OS UNIX System Services (aka USS or OMVS) uses the REXX interface service bpxwunix which, unfortunately, does not support having sub scripts like the zopen-config run from /etc/profile. So we have developed a work-around which requires that once you start zigi that you enter the full path and name for the zopen-config.
Here is an example:
zigi will display this when it is started if it is unable to detect a version of git in the USS Path. You can also display this ISPF Panel using the command zigi /envr when you start or once in zigi enter the command gitenv.
Next you need to run the zginstall.rex command from either USS/OMVS or via the shell. This will allocate the zigi z/OS datasets and copy the contents to them for use.
zigi will use the z/OS supplied cp command to copy datasets, and PDS members, between z/OS and USS but it is slow so not ideal if you have PDS datasets with more than a few dozen members. The Dovetail Technologies company has made available their Co:Z Toolkit, which includes getpds and putpds tools that are lightning fast compared to cp, for free (although it is recommended that you support them by getting a support contract).
Go to (https://coztoolkit.com/downloads/coz/index.html and review the terms and conditions to determine if you installation qualifies for the free license and how to acquire a support (paid) contract if you are able.
The ZGBATCH exec is located in the ZIGI.SAMPLES dataset and is provided as an example for you to use to create a batch process to add/commit/push updates in batch to a zigi managed git repository.
Yes please! We can always use others to join with us in addressing bugs, adding features, improving and/or creating documentation, etc.
When faced with a "SSL Certificate problem: unable to get local issuer" this might 'fix' it. Please note that this will disable encryption for all uses of git and this is strongly discouraged in non-sandbox environments.
git config --global http.sslVerify false
If a text file contains the following special characters they will be corrupted when copied from z/OS to OMVS:
x'0D' Carriage Return (CR)
x'15' New Line (NL)
x'25' Line Feed (LF)
This typically occurs in ISPF Panels where there special characters are used as attribute characters.
The solution is to add these datasets, or PDS members, to the Git repository as binary elements.