What/where are the “quote site” options for z/OS FTP server?

Question

I'm writing a script using Perl and Net::FTP, which is trying to upload a rather large file to the mainframe and I can't seem to get the primary/secondary allocations right.

I try to change them but it appears that, because the data sets are SMS-managed, they go to a different volume each time.

So I went looking the the quote site option which would (hopefully) lock the upload to a specific volume.

The current options I have are:

$ftp->site ("bl=10204 lr=170 rec=vb cy pri=100 sec=100")

and space is pretty tight on most volumes. However, I've located a volume with the required space but don't know how to specify that in the FTP options.

Is there a document somewhere detailing them? I couldn't find anything in the CommServer stuff nor did a Google search for ftp zos quote site turn up anything useful.

Alternatively, does anyone know the option to specify a fixed volume? Obviously I'd prefer the former since there may be other useful things in there but, at this point, I'd take the latter gratefully - I've darn near pulled out all my hair :-)

Answer 1

Log onto your mainframe's FTP using an interactive FTP program (e.g. FTP). Then type "quote help site" and you should get a good list of the options.

Just a little explanation... "site" is a command for the mainframe's FTP server. Typing "help" in front of it gets you help on the function. However, just typing "help site" will look for help on your FTP client (which probably never heard of the site command), so you have to pump the command to the server, which is what the "quote" command does.

BTW, your site command is asking for 100 primary and 100 secondary cylinders. That's a hefty chunk of DASD. Do you really need all that?

Good luck... let me know if you have any questions. I practically live on FTP on the mainframe and have written dozens (maybe hundreds) of Perl scripts to make things easier.

Answer 2

As a general FTP reference for z/os try Z/OS V1R7.0 Comm Svr: IP User's Guide and Commands. Site commands can be found here.

Why not let SMS find the appropriate volume by using a DataClass appropriate for the file size?

How much hair did you start out with? Some can't afford to pull too much!