HP-UX Virtual Partitions Administrator Guide (includes A.05.07) (5900-1229, September 2010)

9 nPartition Operations
This section briefly covers nPartition operations when vPars are in an nPartition. For complete
information on nPartitions, see the nPartition document nPartition Administrator's Guide available
at http://docs.hp.com.
Basic Conceptual Points on using vPars within nPartitions
• Only one vPars Monitor is booted per nPartition.
• Virtual partitions exist within an nPartition, but they cannot span across nPartitions.
• Each virtual partition within a given nPartition can be assigned a subset of only the hardware
assigned to the nPartition. Furthermore, only the active hardware assigned to the nPartition
can be used by the virtual partitions within the nPartition.
• nPartitions remain isolated from other nPartitions, regardless of whether vPars is installed.
You can have virtual partitions installed within an nPartition without affecting the other
nPartitions.
• Note: unlike the rp7400/N4000, on a Superdome and other nPartition servers, the first element
of the hardware path of the ioscan output is the cell number.
For example, on the rp7400/N4000 the ioscan output shows:
0/0 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782)
However, on a Superdome, the first element of the hardware path is the cell number. So, if
the cell number is 4, the ioscan output shows:
4/0/0 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782)
nPartition Information
• The vPars database is entirely separate from the nPartition complex profile data. Therefore,
a change in the vPars partition database does not change any complex profile data. For an
example on changing information in both the vPars partition database and the nPartition
complex profile, see “Using Primary and Alternate Paths with nPartitions” (page 165).
• For a given nPartition, the Virtual Front Panel (VFP) displays an OS heartbeat whenever at
least one virtual partition within the nPartition is up.
• All vPars within an nPartition share the same console device. For a given nPartition, this is
the nPartition’s console. For more information on the console and console logs, see “Virtual
Consoles” (page 32) and “nPartition Logs” (page 35).
• If you make an nPartition change where a Reboot for Reconfiguration is required, all the virtual
partitions within the nPartition need to be shutdown and the vPars Monitor rebooted in
order for the reconfiguration to take effect.
• Once the BIB (Boot-Is-Blocked) state is set in the nPartition, virtual partitions will not be
able to boot up until all the virtual partitions have been shutdown and the vPars Monitor
rebooted. In other words, once there is a pending Reboot for Reconfiguration within the given
nPartition, no virtual partitions can be rebooted until all the virtual partitions within the
given nPartition are shut down and the involved vPars Monitor is rebooted. This implies
that the target virtual partition of the vparload, vparboot, and vparreset commands
will not boot until all virtual partitions within the nPartition have been shut down and the
vPars Monitor is rebooted.
• If any of the following conditions occur, the OS must be booted in nPars mode:
— An nPartition is reconfigured, by adding, deleting, or moving CPUs or cells,
— The nPartition’s NVRAM is cleared, or
— Hyperthreading is turned on for the first time.
Basic Conceptual Points on using vPars within nPartitions 269