Limit the list of users in TPXADMIN's User maintenance

Products

• TPX - Session Management
• Vman Session Management for z/OS

Issue/Introduction

How to set a limit for the number of users listed when getting a list of users.

Environment

TPX® Session Management for z/OS

Cause

When you need to administer userids in TPXADMIN then you select Option '1 - TPX User/Group Maintenance' and then '3 - User Maintenance'. Here you can enter the name of the desired user or enter an asterisk '*' to get the complete list of users. But because retrieving the list of users can cause severe performance degradations (and may lead to an U0032 Abend) in a large installation the function of the asterisk '*' is restricted.

Resolution

This is done by the value in field "Record Count Limit" which is set to 25 by default. If this is not enough, then specify a higher value. There is a limit of 500, if you enter a higher value you get You can specify a number not larger than 500 as this is the Maximum for that field. Otherwise you get error message "MENA8047 Invalid Record Count Limit value".

As you can specify a prefix together with the asterisk it allows you to get lists of users located not at the beginning of the alphabetical list. So you can use 'C*', 'USR*' and whatever prefix you need.

If you are not satisfied with the above mentioned default limits of 25 and 500 you can change them! In the Optional Parameters of the SMRT you can specify the default and a possible maximum value in Field 'TEN0196 Record Count Limit'. You reach that panel in TPXADMIN, '2 - TPX System Options', '1 - System Options (SMRT)', select the currently active SMRT and then select '8 - Operational Parameters'. Note that you need to restart TPX to let the change become active as these values cannot be reloaded.

If you deliberately want to get the full list of users, then enter a 0 (zero) in the "Record Count Limit" and TPX ignores any limits and displays the complete list.

And what about the question mark? You can use that as well and TPX will display the complete list of users. But you can switch that function off by setting Reserved Option 49 to 'Y' in the SMRT. How this is done in detail is explained in our Technical Document TEC509890 titled "How to disable the '?' command in the User Maintenance panel field in TPX?"