libzmq/builds/zos

ZeroMQ on z/OS UNIX System Services

ZeroMQ has been successfully built on z/OS, using z/OS UNIX System Services, a certified UNIX environment for the IBM z-series. The build is possible with the shell scripts in this directory, as described below.

Tested build combinations:

• ZeroMQ 4.0.4, using IBM XL C/C++ compiler, as XPLINK in ILP32 mode

• ZeroMQ 4.0.4, using IBM XL C/C++ compiler, as XPLINK in LP64 mode

• ZeroMQ 4.1-git, using IBM XL C/C++ compiler, as XPLINK in ILP32 mode

Other combinations are likely to work, possibly with minor changes, but have not been tested. Both static library and DLL modes have been tested.

There are some minor limitations (detailed below), but all core functionality tests run successfully.

Quickstart: building ZeroMQ on z/OS UNIX System Services

Assuming z/OS UNIX System Services is installed, and the z/OS XL C/C++ compiler suite is installed, ZeroMQ can be built as follows:

• Download and extract ZeroMQ tar file

• Ensure contents of this directory are present at builds/zos within that extracted directory (eg, zeromq-VERSION/builds/zos/; copy these files in, if not already present, and make sure the shell scripts are executable)

• (Optional) set ZCXXFLAGS for additional compile flags (see below)

• Build libzmq.a static library and libzmq.so dynamic library, with:

  cd zeromq-VERSION
  builds/zos/makelibzmq
  

  or to skip the libzmq.so dynamic library (only building libzmq.a):

  cd zeromq-VERSION
  BUILD_DLL=false
  export BUILD_DLL
  builds/zos/makelibzmq
  

• (Optional, but recommended) build and run the core tests with:

  cd zeromq-VERSION
  builds/zos/maketests
  builds/zos/runtests
  

• To remove built files, to start again (eg, rebuild with different compile/link flags):

  cd zeromq-VERSION
  builds/zos/makeclean
  

There are details on specifying alternative compilation flags below.

Quickstart: using ZeroMQ on z/OS UNIX System Services

Static linking

Install include/*.h somewhere on your compiler include path.

Install src/libzmq.a somewhere on your library search path.

Compile and link application with:

c++ -Wc,xplink -Wl,xplink ... -+ -o myprog myprog.cpp -lzmq

Run with:

./myprog

Dynamic linking

Install include/*.h somewhere on your compiler include path.

Install src/libzmq.so somewhere on your LIBPATH.

Install src/libzmq.x somewhere you can reference for import linking.

Compile and link application:

c++ -Wc,xplink -Wc,dll ... -+ -c -o myprog.o myprog.cpp
c++ -Wl,xplink -o myprog myprog.o /PATH/TO/libzmq.x

Run with:

LIBPATH=/DIR/OF/LIBZMQ.SO:/lib:/usr/lib:...    # if not in default path
export LIBPATH
./myprog

ZeroMQ on z/OS UNIX System Services: Application considerations

z/0S UNIX System Services does not provide a way to block the SIGPIPE signal being generated when a thread writes to a closed socket (compare with other platforms that support the SO_NOSIGPIPE socket option, and/or the MSG_NOSIGNAL flag on send(); z/OS UNIX System Services supports neither).

As a result, applications using ZeroMQ on z/OS UNIX System Services have to expect to encounter SIGPIPE at various times during the use of the library, if sockets are unexpectedly disconnected. Normally SIGPIPE will terminate the application.

A simple solution, if SIGPIPE is not required for normal operation of the application (eg, it is not part of a unix pipeline, the traditional use of SIGPIPE), is to set SIGPIPE to be ignored with code like:

#include <signal.h>
...
signal(SIGPIPE, SIG_IGN);

near the start of the application (eg, before initialising the ZeroMQ library).

If SIGPIPE is required for normal operation it is recommended that the application install a signal handler that flags the signal was received, and allows the application main loop to determine if it was received for one of its own file descriptors -- and ignores it if it none of the applications own file descriptors seems to have changed.

Linking to the libzmq.a static library will pull in substantially all of the library code, which will add about 4MB to the application size (per executable statically linked with ZeroMQ). If this is a significant consideration, use of the DLL version is recommended.

See also ZeroMQ test status on z/OS UNIX System Services below for other caveats.

Setting other compilation flags

Optimisation

To build with optimisation:

• set ZCXXFLAGS to "-O2" before starting build process above

Full debugging symbols

To build with debugging symbols:

• set ZCXXFLAGS to "-g" before starting build process above

64-bit mode (LP64/amode=64)

To build in 64-bit mode:

The default build is ILP32, the default for the IBM XL C/C++ compiler. To build in LP64 mode (64-bit):

• set ZCXXFLAGS to "-Wc,lp64 -Wl,lp64" before starting build

(64-bit mode can be combined with optimisation or debug symbols.)

Combining compilation flags

Other build flags can be used in ZXCCFLAGS if desired. Beware that they are passed through (Bourne) shell expansion, and passed to both the compile and link stages; some experimentation of argument quoting may be required (and arguments requiring parenthesis are particularly complicated).

ZeroMQ test status on z/OS UNIX System Services

As of 2014-07-22, 41 of the 43 tests in the core ZeroMQ test suite pass. There are two tests that are expected to fail:

0. test_abstract_ipc: tests Linux-specific IPC functions, and is expected to fail on non-Linux platforms.

1. test_fork: tests ability to use ZeroMQ both before and after fork (and before exec()); this relies on the ability to use pthreads both before and after fork. On z/OS (and some other UNIX compliant platforms) functions like pthreads_create (used by ZeroMQ) cannot be used after fork and before exec; on z/OS the call after fork fails with ELEMULTITHREADFORK (errno=257) if ZeroMQ was also used before fork. (On z/OS it appears possible to use z/OS after fork, providing it has not been used before fork -- the problem is the two separate initialisations of the threading library, before and after fork, attempting to mix together.) In practice this is unlikely to affect many real-world programs -- most programs use threads or fork without exec, but not both.

2. test_diffserv: tests ability to set IP_TOS (IP Type of Service, or DiffServ) values on sockets. While z/OS UNIX System Services has the preprocessor defines required, it appears not to support the required functionality (call fails with "EDC8109I Protocol not available.")

These three "expected to fail" tests are listed as XFAIL_TESTS, and runtests will still consider the test run successful when they fail as expected. (builds/zos/runtests will automatically skip these "expected to fail" tests if running "all" tests.)

In addition test_security_curve does not do any meaningful testing, as a result of the CURVE support not being compiled in; it requires libsodium, which has not been ported to z/OS UNIX System Services yet.

Multicast (via libpgm) is also not ported or compiled in.

TIPC, a cluster IPC protocol, is only supported on Linux, so it is not compiled into the z/OS UNIX System Services port -- and the tests are automatically skipped if running "all" tests. (However they are not listed in XFAIL_TESTS because without the TIPC support there is no point in even running them, and it would be non-trivial to track them by hand.)

ZeroMQ on z/OS UNIX System Services: Library portability notes

*.cpp

The source code in ZeroMQ is a combination of a C++ core library (in *.cpp and *.hpp files), and a C wrapper (also in *.cpp files). It is all compiled with the C++ compiler. The IBM XL C/C++ compiler (at least the version used for initial porting) insists that C++ source be in *.C files (note capital C). To work around this issue the compile flag -+ is used (specified in the zc++ compiler wrapper), which tells the compiler the file should be considered C++ despite the file extension.

XPLINK

The library (and tests) are built in XPLINK mode with the flags -Wc,xplink -Wl,xplink (specified in the zc++ compiler wrapper). This is recommended by IBM for C++ code due to the small functions. (Amongst other things, using XPLINK enables function calls with some arguments passed in registers.)

long long

ZeroMQ makes use of uint64_t (which is unsigned long long in ILP32 mode). To enable this the compile flag -Wc,lang(longlong) is passed to enable long long. This is passed from the zc++ compiler wrapper in order to be able to specifically quote the argument to protect the parentheses from shell expansion.

BSD-style sockets, with IPv6 support

ZeroMQ uses BSD-style socket handling, with extensions to support IPv6. BSD-style sockets were merged into SysV-derived UNIX at least a decade ago, and are required as part of the X/Open Portability Guide at least as of XPG 4.2. To access this functionality two feature macros are defined:

_XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED=1

_OPEN_SYS_SOCK_IPV6

The first enables the XPG 4.2 features (including functionality like getsockname()), and the latter exposes IPv6 specific functionality like sa_family_t. These flags are defined in the cxxall script.

(The traditional BSD-sockets API, exposed with _OE_SOCKETS cannot be used because it does not support functions like getsockname(), nor does it support IPv6 -- and the API definitions prevent compiling in LP64 mode due to assumptions about long being 32 bits. Using _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED=1 avoids all these problems.)

pthreads

ZeroMQ uses the pthreads library to create additional threads to handle background communication without blocking the main application. This functionaity is enabled on z/OS UNIX System Services by defining:

_OPEN_THREADS=3

which is done in the cxxall script. (The "3" value exposes later pthreads functionality like pthread_atfork, although ZeroMQ does not currently use all these features.)

If compiling on a recent version of z/OS UNIX System Services it may be worth compiling with:

_UNIX03_THREADS=1

which enables a later version of the threading support, potentially including pthread_getschedparam and pthread_setschedparam`; at present in the z/OS UNIX System Services port these functions are hidden and never called. (See IBM z/OS pthread.h documentation for details on the differences.)

platform.hpp on z/OS UNIX System Services

The build (described above) on z/OS UNIX System Services uses a static pre-built platform.hpp file. (By default src/platform.hpp is dynamically generated as a result of running the ./configure script.) The master version of this is in builds/zos/platform.hpp.

Beware that this file contains the version number for libzmq (usually included during the configure phase). If taking the platform.hpp from an older version to use on a newer libzmq be sure to update the version information near the top of the file.

The pre-built file is used because z/OS does not have the GNU auto tools (automake, autoconf, libtool, etc) installed, and particularly the libtool replacement does not work properly with the IBM XL C/C++ compiler.

The ./configure script (only supplied in the tarballs); built with automake and autoconf on another platform), with one small edit, was used to generate the z/OS platform.hpp and then two small changes (described below) were made by hand to the generated platform.hpp.

To be able to run the ./configure script to completion (in tcsh syntax):

• Edit ./configure and add:

  openedition)
        ;;
  

  immediately before the line:

  as_fn_error $? "unsupported system: ${host_os}." "$LINENO" 5
  

  (somewhere around 17637). This avoids the configure script giving up early because openedition is not recognised.

• set CXX to point that the full path to the builds/zos/zc++ wrapper, eg

  setenv CXX "/u/0mq/zeromq-4.0.4/builds/zos/zc++"
  

• set CPPFLAGS to for the feature macros required, eg:

  setenv CPPFLAGS "-D_XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED=1 -D_OPEN_THREADS=3 -D_OPEN_SYS_SOCK_IPV6 -DZMQ_HAVE_ZOS"
  

• set CXXFLAGS to enable XPLINK:

  setenv CXXFLAGS "-Wc,xplink -Wl,xplink -+"
  

• run configure script with --disable-eventfd (sys/eventfd.h does not exist, but the test for its existence has a false positive on z/OS UNIX System Services, apparently due to the way the c++ compiler wrapper passes errors back from the IBM XL C/C++ compiler), and with --with-poller=poll because poll is the most advanced of the file descriptor status tests available on z/OS. That is:

  ./configure --disable-eventfd --with-poller=poll
  

All going well several Makefiles, and src/platform.hpp should be produced. Two additional changes are required to src/platform.hpp which can be appended to the end:

/* ---- Special case for z/OS Unix Services: openedition ---- */
#include <pthread.h>
#ifndef   NI_MAXHOST
#define   NI_MAXHOST 1025
#endif

(many includes require pthreads-related methods or data structures to be defined, but not all of them include pthread.h, and the value NI_MAXHOST is not defined on z/OS UNIX System Services -- the 1025 value is the conventional value on other platforms).

Having done this the Makefiles can be used to compile individual files if desired, eg:

cd src
make zmq.o

but note:

• IBM Make will warn of duplicate prerequisites on every run of make, and both the generated src/Makefile and tests/Makefile have several duplicates. (For src/Makefile edit libzmq_la_SOURCES to remove the duplicates.)

• IBM Make does not understand the @ prefix (eg, @echo) as a way to avoid echoing the command, resulting in an error and the command being echoed anyway.

• Many of the make targets result in GNU auto tools (aclocal, etc) being invoked, which are likely to fail, and most of the library-related targets will invoke libtool which will cause compile failures (due to differences in expected arguments).

However running ./configure to regenerate src/platform.hpp may be useful for later versions of ZeroMQ which add more feature tests.

Transferring from GitHub to z/OS UNIX System Services

The process of transferring files from GitHub to z/OS UNIX System Services is somewhat convoluted because:

• There is not a port of git for z/OS UNIX System Services; and

• z/OS uses the EBCDIC (IBM-1047) character set rather than the ASCII/ISO-8859-1 character set used by the ZeroMQ source code on GitHub

A workable transfer process is:

• On an ASCII/ISO-8859-1/UTF-8 system with git (eg, a Linux system):

  git clone https://github.com/zeromq/libzmq.git
  git archive --prefix=libzmq-git/ -o /var/tmp/libzmq-git.tar master
  

• On a ASCII/ISO-8859-1/UTF-8 system with tar, and pax, and optionally the GNU auto tools (eg, the same Linux system):

  mkdir /var/tmp/zos
  cd /var/tmp/zos
  tar -xpf /var/tmp/libzmq-git.tar
  cd libzmq-git
  ./autogen.sh             # Optional: to be able to run ./configure
  cd ..
  pax -wf /var/tmp/libzmq-git.pax libzmq-git
  compress libzmq-git.pax  # If available, reduce transfer size
  

• Transfer the resulting file (libzmq-git.pax or libzmq-git.pax.Z) to the z/OS UNIX System Services system. If using FTP be sure to transfer the file in bin (binary/Image) mode to avoid corruption.

• On the z/OS UNIX System Services system, unpack the pax file and convert all the files to EBCDIC with:

  pax -o from=iso8859-1 -pp -rvf  libzmq-git-2014-07-23.pax
  

  or if the file was compressed:

  pax -o from=iso8859-1 -pp -rvzf libzmq-git-2014-07-23.pax.Z
  

The result should be a libzmq-git directory with the source in EBCDIC format, on the z/OS UNIX System Services system ready to start building.

See also the pax man page, some pax conversion examples, and IBM's advice on ASCII to EBCDIC conversion options