Canceling an MVS Address Space

Products

• Remote Console PREVAIL/XP AUTOMATION-RDF/SSM
• Remote Console PREVAIL/XP-AUTOMATION PHASE 1
• Remote Console

Issue/Introduction

Need to know how to cancel a MVS address space on remote console 

Environment

Remote Console 
 

Resolution

If you want to cancel an MVS address space, first start with the ASCANCEL command. The ASCANCEL command is actually issuing an MVS CANCEL command under the covers. Keep in mind that the ASCANCEL command will be rejected if the target address space is non-cancelable. 

The format of the ASCANCEL command is as follows:

ASCANcel asid <opts>

The asid is the address space ID that is to be canceled and can be specified with any one of the following forms:

hexasid , decasid, jobname, jobnumber, jobid

The following are the options that can be used:

NODump, Dump, NORestart, Restart, NOConfirm, Confirm, NOMessage, and Message

If ASCANCEL does not cancel the address space, then try using the ASFORCE command to force the address space. The ASFORCE command issues an MVS FORCE command under the covers. The ASFORCE command will be rejected if the address space has an attribute of non-memtermable. You can also use the ASVT command to check the non-memtermable attribute of an address space. The ASFORCE command will also be rejected if the target address space is cancelable, and you have not yet tried the ASCANCEL command.

The format of the ASFORCE command is as follows:

ASFORce asid <opts>

The asid and opts parameters for ASFORCE are the same as ASCANCEL, except that ASFORCE does not have the NODump and Dump options.

As a last resort only. If the ASCANCEL and ASFORCE do not cancel the address space, then you can try the ASKILL command. The ASKILL command uses the CALLRTM MEMTERM service. If an address space is marked as being non-memtermable, The ASKILL command will not be able to terminate that address space, even if a Dynamic Address Translation (DAT) error occurs. Again, the ASVT command can be used to check the attributes of an address space. If an address space is marked as non-memtermable, it will be displayed by the ASVT command as having the NOMD attribute.

The format of the ASKILL command is as follows:

ASKILl asid <opts>

The asid parameters for ASKILL are the same as ASCANCEL and ASFORCE, however, the following four options that are available:

NOConfirm, Confirm, NOMessage, Message

Finally, some very important notes when using ASFORCE and ASKILL:

• Indiscriminate use of the ASFORCE and ASKILL commands can cause problems that require an IPL to fix.
• Before using ASFORCE, be sure you understand all of the implications and warnings listed in the description of the MVS FORCE command, which is in the IBM System Commands manual.
• The ASKILL command can be used to recover from some situations that would force an IPL anyway.