Open-source Languages & Tools for z/OS

All of the Rocket z/OS ports of open source languages and tools are available for download from the Rocket Community website downloads page.

Log in to the Rocket Community here: https://my.rocketsoftware.com/RocketCommunity/RCLogin

If you do not have an account, you can request one here at no cost.

All downloads are meant to be unpacked on z/OS. However, most people first download to a PC and then transfer to z/OS (e.g. via SFTP) for unpacking. Be sure to use binary mode when transferring!

Other forum posts cover unpacking, version and README info, and installation generalities.

Downloads seem to be corrupted. I’ve downloaded several of the tools, then binary FTP’d (also tried SFTP) to my system. All fail to decompress. Example:

$ tar -zxvf bash-4.2_b0004.160229.tar.gz
tar: decompress: FSUM6636 not in compressed format

Also, gzip fails to untar:

$ tar -xovf gzip-1.6-edc_b0005.160229.tar
tar: checksum error on tape (got 28c8, expected 0)

Sorry for screw-up. New downloads in place. However, new bash is not downloading. Seems to be a problem with our download web infrastructure affecting only this tool.

Web download infrastructure problem also now fixed. All tools including bash have been re-uploaded and download tested.

Thanks. They work now.

I am trying to download the tools and I am getting the same problems listed here. Were the products uploaded again recently?

Hi Patti,
Did you read this other post? It may help.

http://forum.rocketsoftware.com/t/unpacking-tool-distributions/211

Yes, I read the post. I also read the post about z/OS 1.13. The tar is not working for gzip either.

I took the time to do an end-to-end test just now. Requested download, got email, clicked link, downloaded gzip 1.6 to my PC, transferred from PC to z/OS USS in binary mode, once in USS, I applied “tar -xovf” command to unpack gzip. All worked correctly. Also sucessfully tested gunzip to unpack bash download downloaded and transferred in the same way.

Did you use binary mode when transferring the distributions into USS?

Yes, I even tried it with two different programs. I will start over and see how it goes.

Hello -

I have tried to obtain the download links a couple of times with no success. Due to aggressive SPAM filtering, that is beyond my control, it seems that I am unable to receive an email from portedtools@rocketsoftware,com (although noreply@rocketsoftware.com worked fine). This is likely due to the email service provider that is sending the email being flagged as a source of undesired email and being blocked. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have had this problem. Is there an alternate method to obtain the download links?

Thank you.

Hi Fred, At present there is no other download mechanism nor to my knowledge plans for alternatives.

Fred,
I had my co-worker whitelist portedtools@rocketsoftware.com. That seems to have worked. I hope this helps.

I am still getting the same error on the gzip download:

-rw-r–r-- 1 PNEUMAN OMVSGRP 999928 Apr 12 15:09 gzip-1.6-edc_b0005.160229.tar
PNEUMAN(/usr/local)$ tar -xovf gzip-1.6-edc_b0005.160229.tar
tar: checksum error on tape (got 42e5, expected 0)

I am downloading from the web page, using Ipswitch WS FTP Pro 12.4. The transfer mode is set to binary. I am transferring to a z/10 bc running z/OS 2.1.0 (SPLevel 7.2.1). Is it possible to ftp the files directly to the mainframe?

Hi Patti,

I am sorry you are having troubles. Below is a command I ran to display the first few bytes of the tar as it should look. If you downloaded the same tar, run this command, and see a different set of bytes, then somewhere along the way the tar got corrupted. I used Firefox 45.0.1 to download to my PC and transferred to USS using WinSCP 5.7.6 (in binary mode).

od -t x1 < gzip-1.6-edc_b0005.160229.tar | head

0000000000 2E 2F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000000140 00 00 00 00 30 30 30 37 37 35 20 00 30 30 33 31
0000000160 34 36 20 00 30 30 30 37 36 35 20 00 30 30 30 30
0000000200 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 20 31 32 36 36 34 37 35 37
0000000220 35 36 36 20 30 31 31 31 31 33 20 00 35 00 00 00
0000000240 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000000400 00 75 73 74 61 72 00 30 30 50 44 4B 55 5A 4D 00

Well, I figured out my problem. I was using sftp in WinSCP to transfer the files. I changed it to an ftp connection and the files transferred correctly. On to the install. Thanks for all your help.

You are most welcome Patti

Hello,

I have received following download link, but when I opened it with firefox, the “expired” message was prompted. How can I fix this problem? Thanks.

This appears to be a new problem. I just reproduced it myself. I have assigned this to our web team to resolve. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for letting us know.
-Peter

Thanks for your quick response. Please let me know once the problem is fixed. Thanks again.

This problem should be resolved now. Please try again. You can try again the link in your existing email and it should now work.
I apologize for the inconvenience.
Best Regards,
-Peter

Hi friends from Rocket

I’m having problems to download Bash 4.2.3.
The error message says: The download link to the file or folder has expired!

Thank you,

Philippe

Sorry for the delay. Problem confirmed. Will get this fixed ASAP and post again once it is confirmed working.
-Peter

Please try again. Provided your existing link ends with ‘BB0075’ then that link should work. Otherwise, please obtain a new link from the download page.
Best,
-Peter

Hello - I am receiving the same error as philip above - “The download link to the file or folder has expired!”

Sorry for the delay. Problem confirmed. Will get this fixed ASAP and post again once it is confirmed working.
-Peter

Please try again. Provided your existing link ends with ‘BB0075’ then that link should work. Otherwise, please obtain a new link from the download page.
Best,
-Peter

Is there any way to prevent being asked from all my contact info any time I come back and look for an update to something I have already downloaded?
I am tired and answer all those question each and every time I visit your site. it’s annoying at best and a pain is more more like it.

I’ve already registered for download like 10 time this year. it’s getting to be enough of an issue for me to drop all of your products from our system. you have my info. you do not need to constantly ask for it because I want to pull latest code.

I completely agree Sandra. I will see if I can do something about it.

This issue should now be resolved though it may be only for future links.

Hi Pfandel,
I try to download the z/os Open Source Tools (openssl)
My registration seems to be successful, I received the download link, but each time I click on the DOWNLOAD button (even if I’m getting the Welcome back message), I’m back to the “Thanks for your interested page”, and no download is starting… I’m looping ! Any idea of what I’m doing wrong ? Thanks 4 yr help. BR.

We are having a new problem with downloads. As yet unresolved. Please check out this other topic for workarounds and other user experience.

• In a Register to Download Loop for Bash 4.2.53

Hi,
I have problem with downloading anything:

After clicking on download link (or pasting it to another browser) it hangs on “Loading…” message. Tried 4 different browsers and nothing. Could you please help with getting gzip and python for z/os?

Hi Levant,
I reported this issue to website maintenance team. I will let you know when it is resolved soon.
Thanks for your patience.
Regards,
-Baoyuan

Gzip download link updated.

Hi there,

We are having the same problem (trying to download PHP) using both Internet Explorer 11 and Firefox. The “Loading …” icon just sits there and nothing happens.

Hi mountie1,
I reported this issue to website maintenance team. I will let you know when it is resolved soon.
Thanks for your patience.
Regards,
-Baoyuan

PHP download link has been updated.

Could you please also update link for Python?

Hello Rocket Software,

I retried the process for downloading PHP again, i.e., I completed the form requesting my name, etc. I received the Get your downloads" e-mail, which contains a line that has two links:

Download php-544, or access all z/OS Open Source Tools.

(where “php-544” is one hyperlink and “access all z/OS Open Source Tools” is another).
Clicking on the “php-544” link does nothing but open a blank page (about:blank). If I look at the actual e-mail text there is no link in the e-mail source. If I click on the “access all z/OS Open Source Tools”, I actually get a Web page, however, all of the “Loading …” icons are not selectable.

I was able to download PHP via the link pfandel supplied in entry above. However, now I’m looking for PERL and CURL, Can you supply functioning download links for those products in this forum until whatever is wrong with the process is corrected ?

Thanks

Sorry for the troubles. I am assured that our auto download link generation code is now working again. Please try again.

Hello Rocket Software,
I retried downloading PERL and CURL and both download processes worked without any problem.
Thanks for resolving this issue,
Mark Jackson,
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

the download loop problem still exists, could you give the download link for Python?

Hi, I have registered and received the email from portedtools.

However, the download link is not an actual ‘active’ link – so I am provided no way with actually downloading the tools:

I am interested in downloading bash.

So it seems my problem is similar to mountie1 - except I don’t actually get a link on the ‘Download’ text.

Peter, I’m in the same register / download / register loop as described elsewhere. I’m trying to download the latest perl 5.22.0, I used the link that I was sent today via e-mail, and when I go to the web page from the e-mail and click on the download button, it takes me right back to the “register for free tools” page. I’ve tried 2 different browsers. This has been going on (intermittently) since this site has existed, and it’s maddening (you know the line about “going crazy is a much shorter trip for some than for others”, right?). What about making it mandatory to join the Software Forum, and just key the download authorization off of those credentials? If you’re trying to track who downloaded what and when, this should give it to you. Also, it would be helpful if the full version of the file (i.e. like “perl-5.22.0_b0004.160229.tar.gz” was available right on the download page, that way you could tell just by looking at the full file name whether there was a newer copy of the file to download than the one you have…

In the meantime, any bypass available for the problem?

Thanks,
-Mike

Python 2.7.6: https://download-eu.rocketsoftware.com/ro2/d/128FB3C01048499FB75174F54C115640

same Looping prob for curl download.

I’m also in the same register / download / register loop. Tried to download Perl, DiffUtil, Git. I hope it resolve in the near future.

For those stuck in the endless registration loop, I have a couple of questions so we can track down where the problem is:

1. Are you using the same browser to register as you are using to access the download URL in the email?
2. Do you have cookies enabled?
3. There are 2 links in the email, the first is a direct download and the other goes to a web page to download all the tools. Does the direct download link in the email work?

Thank you,
Chris

I just registered to download perl and did not see the download link in the email in Outlook. All it showed was
Download , or access all z/OS Open Source Tools.
However if you save the email and look at the source you will see the download link after the word Download

Al

Which version of perl did you try to download?

Hello Chris.
The answer for first and second questions are yes.
For the third question, its my fault that i didn’t recognize the direct download link for Perl. Now i tried and it worked.
Besides, the link for all downloads is also works now. You corrected something or more probably I missed something, I don’t know but it is all ok now.

Thank you very much for your fast response and attention.

perl-5.22.0_b0005.160429.tar.gz

For Perl 5.22 (EBDCI only) you can use this URL.
For Perl 5.24 (supports z/OS enhanced ASCII) you can use this URL.

I am trying to download OpenSSL from link given. I am unable to download it using link I received after registering. I did try another tool, Python, and it worked without issue. Is there an alternative link for downloading OpenSSL?

Try this please: https://download-eu.rocketsoftware.com/ro2/d/1B5CFF987BF64DAD872A54D72D5B3ACE

I’m trying to download and untar gzip-1.6-edc_b0005.160229.tar Like some other people above, when I try to untar it, I get the error:

tar: checksum error on tape (got 42e5, expected 0)

Using the:

od -t x1 < gzip-1.6-edc_b0005.160229.tar | head

command suggested above, I get:

0000000000 4B 61 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000000140 00 00 00 00 F0 F0 F0 F7 F7 F5 40 00 F0 F0 F3 F1
0000000160 F4 F6 40 00 F0 F0 F0 F7 F6 F5 40 00 F0 F0 F0 F0
0000000200 F0 F0 F0 F0 F0 F0 F0 40 F1 F2 F6 F6 F4 F7 F5 F7
0000000220 F5 F6 F6 40 F0 F1 F1 F1 F1 F3 40 00 F5 00 00 00
0000000240 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000000400 00 A4 A2 A3 81 99 00 F0 F0 D7 C4 D2 E4 E9 D4 00
CEE5213S The signal SIGPIPE was received.

Compared to what I’m supposed to be getting (see above), this looks like it has gone through an ASCII -> EBCDIC IMB-1047 conversion. I uploaded the tar file to z/OS (from cygwin under Windows) using scp, which only supports binary file transfers (and presumably knows nothing about EBCDIC), so it seems likely that the unwanted ASCII -> EBCDIC IBM-1047 conversion happened on the receiving z/OS end of the scp transfer. (I have also confirmed with tar -tvf that the cygwin copy I was scping from is undamaged.) ls -alT shows that the z/OS received copy is untagged (I experimented with retagging it as binary or IBM-1047 text, but it didn’t help). Is there some z/OS configuration setting that I can change to disable this unhelpful behavior (automatically doing an ASCII -> EBCDIC conversion on files being received by scp)?

Applying:

iconv -f IBM-1047 -t ISO8859-1 gzip-1.6-edc_b0005.160229.tar > gzip-1.6-edc_b0005.160229.new.tar

undoes the corruption and yields a usable new.tar file, but this is annoying to have to do every time I upload a file.

I cannot answer your question per se but I have found that by using WinSCP and SFTP protocol and of course using binary mode, no unwanted encoding conversion occurs.

Note, many of the posts on this topic relate to the old way to download Rocket’s z/OS open source products, and are no longer relevant with the introduction of a new system which is easier to use. The original posting has been edited to describe the new system.

Hello,

on https://www.rocketsoftware.com/de/zos-open-source/tools the package findutils 4.4.2 is listed to download, the link leads to Rocket Community, but there I couldn’t find a download link for this package.
What I’m doing wrong?

Kind regards
Juergen