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

As a preventive action, you can back up the vPars partition database to avoid accidental loss of
configuration changes. For more details, see “Network and Tape Recovery” (page 283) and “Using
an Alternate Partition Database File ” (page 175).
You can create, modify, and view the database contents using vPars commands at the Unix shell
level. See “vPars Monitor and Shell Commands” (page 125). Because the format of the database
is proprietary, you must use only vPars commands to create, modify, and view the database.
Whenever you execute a vPars command from the Unix shell of a partition, the change is made
first to the vPars Monitor’s master copy. Then, the operating system from which you executed
the command updates its local copy from the master copy. Every five seconds, the operating
system of each running partition automatically updates its local copy from the master copy. This
synchronization ensures that the virtual partitions and changes to the partition database are
preserved when the entire hard partition is rebooted.
NOTE: The vPars Monitor can only synchronize to the database files of running virtual partitions.
If you reboot the hard partition, you should boot the vPars Monitor from the boot disk of a virtual
partition that was running during your most recent partition configuration change.
Boot Sequence
This section describes the boot differences in a vPars system relative to a non-vPars system.
For information on the HP-UX boot process, ISL, SSL, EFI, and vmunix, see the HP-UX System
Administrator's Guide: Routine Management Tasks available at http://docs.hp.com and see also the
following manpages:
• boot(1M)
• efi(4)
• hpux(1M)
• hpux.efi(1M)
• isl(1M)
• pdc(1M)
• setboot(1M)
NOTE: This section describes a manual boot sequence to help explain how vPars impacts the
boot process, but you can continue to use an autoboot sequence to boot all partitions. See
“Autoboot” (page 167).
Boot Sequence: Quick Reference
On a server without vPars, a simplified boot sequence is as follows.
IntegrityPA-RISC
(Extensible Firmware Interface)1. EFI(Initial System Loader)1. ISL
(HP-UX boot loader)2. hpux.efi(secondary system loader)2. hpux
3. /stand/vmunix(kernel)3. /stand/vmunix
30 How vPars and Its Components Work