Here are some interesting and perhaps useful technical documents and software tools and applications for the z/VM and Linux under z/VM environments, free for the taking. Unless otherwise noted, the software tools and applications are the property of their respective authors. Enjoy.

"z/VM Licensing and Pricing" -- a short description, in plain English, of how IBM licenses and charges for Z/VM V5. A .pdf version is here and a MS Word version here.

GENIPLER -- generate an IPL-able named saved system that includes CP commands to control how the named saved system IPLs itself. This version contains z/VM V4 and V5 updates by Chris Langford. The download file is: GENIPLER.VMARC.

GCC-CMS -- a port of the popular gcc C compiler to the CMS environment. This is the R3.2.3 version of the compiler and code generated by this port does not require the LE runtime environment in order to execute. The download page for GCC-CMS can be found here.

SCHEDULE -- Simon Kharnas's package that schedules events to occur at specific dates and times in your virtual machine. Multiple events can be scheduled to occur once or at regular intervals (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly). SCHEDULE executes as a nucleus extension and is driven by the Clock Comparator external interrupt, so you can perform normal CMS tasks while waiting for the scheduled events to occur. The download file is: SCHEDULE.VMARC.

WEBSHARE -- Rick Troth's HTTPD server for z/VM (CMS), written in Rexx and CMS Pipelines, version 1.2.4. WEBSHARE allows both text and binary files to be served out to web browsers very easily from CMS. The download file is: WEBSHARE.VMARC.

IPGATE -- is an application, developed by Stephen Record, Perry Ruiter, and Holger Woller, that allows the sharing APPC resources across VM systems without the need of SNA. The application is written in Rexx and uses MTREXX to create the threads. The code can be compiled with the Rexx compiler, if desired. IPGATE communicates through TCP/IP and sets up a separate session for each conversation. One conversation is needed per user and APPC resource pair. IPGATE has been tested extensively with Shared File Pools (SFS) and the IBM Performance ToolKit (a.k.a. FCON/ESA). This version contains updates to IPGATE by Kris Buelens to support CMS Alternate User ID and by Perry Ruiter to fix connection timeout errors and to allow IPGATE traffic to flow over links that are not on the default home address. The download file is: IPGATE.VMARC.

MAILABLE -- is a tool, developed by Phill Smith, III, that converts one or many files to/from a format suitable for sending in e-mail or FTPing as plaintext. MAILABLEs are self-extracting programs: rename a MAILABLE to filetype EXEC and invoke it -- it will tell you its contents and how to extract them. The download file is: MAILABLE.MAILABLE.

SFB -- (Spool File Backup) is a utility that can backup and restore VM spool files, including SDF files, to and from CMS files. SFB can process the following spool file types:

NSS - Named Saved System
DCSS - Discontiguous Saved Segment
IMG - Image Libraries
NLS - Message Repository Files
UCR - User Class Restructure Files (Override)
SPL - Regular spool files (Rdr, Prt and Pun)

SFB can help eliminate the need for tape drives to be available on the z/VM system. The download file is: SFB.VMARC.