System console
The screen where z/OS shows its messages to operators and accepts system commands.
Also written console, MVS console, operator console, operator command, system command
The system console is where z/OS reports what it is doing and where operators give it instructions. Messages appear as they happen: a job starting, a dataset filling up, a subsystem stopping. Commands typed there control the whole system.
System commands are short. D A,L displays the active work. S starts a started task and P stops one. Commands that begin with a dollar sign, such as $D, go to JES2. Some messages need an answer, and the operator replies to them with R followed by the reply number and the answer.
Messages that need action are highlighted and stay on the screen until someone deals with them. That is how operators know what needs attention among thousands of routine messages.
Today the console is rarely a single physical screen. Operators use console sessions on a 3270 terminal, the slash command in SDSF, web tools, and automation software that reads messages and responds to the common ones without a person. Most developers never need console authority, but they read console messages often, in the system log.
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- OperatorThe person who watches the running systems, responds to messages, and starts, stops and recovers work.
- SYSLOGThe system log: a running record of every console message and command on a z/OS system.
- Started taskA long-running program that the system starts and leaves running, rather than a job that runs once and finishes.
- JES2The job entry subsystem: the part of z/OS that queues jobs, decides when they run, and collects their output.
- SDSFThe tool for looking at what jobs are running, what has finished, and what output they produced.
- z/OSThe main operating system that runs on IBM mainframes, in the same way Windows or Linux runs on a laptop or server.