Support for zowe-cli install on zOS/USS to enable native scripting

[ibmrcruicks]

Is your feature request related to a problem or limitation? Please describe. The IBM Z Xplore learning has been established to help students, and experienced professionals to develop skills in all aspects of the Z platform. Many of the target community have limited rights/ability to install code of any kind (college/uni lab machine, corporate-managed desktops, for example) -- we lose these candidates as soon as we require installation of the zowe-cli and associated plug-in. Currently, 10s of thousands have signed up to the community, a great start to IBM drive to educate and enable a new generation of skilled Z enthusiasts. With a "no local code" option, we can accommodate a much greater proprtion of the community. USS environment is a fundamental part of zOS, but currently does not benefit from full zowe support.

Describe the experience you'd like System level, consistent, installation of zowe-cli in conjunction with node.js for zOS UNIX -- avoiding the need for individuals to attempt their own installation of potentially different versions/releases and associated support issues. Ideally, such an installation would have SCS support, consistent with good secure practice.

Describe alternatives you've considered global install with npm install -g -- short-lived effectiveness on learning system which are maintained fortnightly. Node.js install volume usually read-only. Use of zowe-cli without SCS for educational purposes

Additional context https://newsroom.ibm.com/2021-10-13-IBM-Commits-to-Skill-30-Million-People-Globally-by-2030 zOS skills necessarily expose users to the native Unix services on every Z system - an easy on-ramp to gaining experience with zowe in a controlled.managed environment, without dependence on other operating systems/platforms.

[Joe-Winchester]

I've helped a few customers get Zowe CLI working on USS and these are the issues we've had to work around:

export _CEE_RUNOPTS="FILETAG(AUTOCVT,AUTOTAG) POSIX(ON)"
export _BPXK_AUTOCVT="ON"

These ensure that the .js files with their `ISO-85591' encodings are read correctly and not treated as EBCDIC. These export statements aren't necessarily going to be in everyone's .profile file, I was thinking of adding these to core CLI as even if they happened on a laptop there would be no detriment even though they're z/OS specific

We had another customer issue where the user installing npm had a uid of 0 that meant that npm --version failed (which is an npm issue so not stricly a Zowe CLI one).

[ibmrcruicks]

thanks Joe - we can implement that as default through /etc/profile in USS

[nkocsis]

Issue moved to zowe/zowe-cli zowe/community#1211 via ZenHub

[github-actions[bot]]

Thank you for raising this enhancement request. The community has 90 days to vote on it. If the enhancement receives at least 5 upvotes, it is added to our development backlog. If it receives fewer votes, the issue is closed.

[armstro]

I would like to advertise on LinkedIn this issue to try to get up votes please ..1) is this the correct issue to have people link to? I see some comments about a duplicate issue 2) can someone point out how to up vote? I don't see anything obvious there - thans

[zFernand0]

I believe this will be a good issue to give exposure to. The duplication comments were regarding the transfer of the issue.

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