The control file table

About this task

The CICS BAC communication server, the ISPF administration interface, the file maintenance utility, and the batch request utility all need to know the fully-qualified data set name of the control file of each CICS® region. This is so that these tasks can allocate and access the appropriate control file in the event that CICS BAC is not active in the owning CICS region, or the owning CICS region is down. In the normal course of events, the communication server, the ISPF administration interface, the file maintenance utility, and the batch request utility read and update the control file through the CICS BAC request server task in the CICS region. To define the corresponding data set name for each CICS region, enter the details in a partitioned data set member named CBKCFTBL, in the following format:

CICS APPLID
Specify the CICS region APPLID in the first 8 bytes, beginning in column 1, padded with trailing spaces as required.
Separator character
Specify the separator character in column 9 as a space. This is required only for readability but must be present.
Data set name
Specify the fully-qualified 44-byte data set name in columns 10 to 53.
For example:
+---+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5---
CICSHUR1 CICSHUR1.CICSAOR1.CBKCNTLF

There is a sample control file table in SCBKSAMP, member name CBKCFTBL, that you can modify with your own names.

Note: The control file table member name must be CBKCFTBL. This can be a member of:
  • A CICS BAC parmlib data set that is defined to the communication server or the batch request utility on a CBKPARMS DD statement
  • Any data set that is included in the MVS™ logical parmlib concatenation.
When a CICS BAC communication server task or a CICS BAC batch request utility job needs to allocate a CICS region control file, it attempts to find the control file table in one of the following places:
  • The task or job first checks for a CBKPARMS DD statement in its JCL. If there is a CBKPARMS statement, the task or job attempts to find a member named CBKCFTBL. If it finds a CBKCFTBL member, it uses that member and doesn't look anywhere else. If it is found to be an empty member, CICS BAC issues an error message and terminates the communication server request or batch request utility job step.
  • If there is not a CBKPARMS DD statement, or the CBKPARMS partitioned data set does not contain a CBKCFTBL member, CICS BAC searches the MVS logical parmlib concatenation for the CBKCFTBL member. If it cannot be found, or is found but is empty, CICS BAC generates an error message and terminates the communication server request or batch request utility job step.