HP-UX Virtual Partitions Administrator's Guide (includes A.05.02)

How vPars and its Components Work
Virtual Consoles
Chapter 2
35
Virtual Consoles
HP-UX servers have a special terminal or window called a console that allows special control and displays
system error messages.
With vPars, each virtual partition has its own virtual console. On Integrity, the console is virtualized by
firmware (and therefore, there is no vcs driver). On PA-RISC, for each partition, its console I/O is sent to its
vcn (Virtual CoNsole) driver. From the vcn driver, the console I/O is sent to the Monitor. From the Monitor,
the console I/O is sent to the vcs (virtual console slave) driver of the partition that owns the hardware console
port. Finally, the vcs driver sends the console I/O to the physical hardware console. It is this vcs driver that
manages the console I/O to the actual hardware console port.
When the partition that owns the hardware console port is not running, the vPars Monitor takes over the
management of the I/O to the hardware console port, so you will still have access to the virtual console
displays.
You can access the console port as you would on any non-vPars server, for example, through a dumb terminal
or lan console. Then, to cycle between the virtual console displays of the various partitions, press Ctrl-A.
Each virtual partition has an 8K circular buffer for console output. If not already displayed, the Monitor
copies this 8K buffer to the console when you press Ctrl-A.
CAUTION (A.03.xx only) The first virtual partition that you create must own the LBA (local bus adapter)
that contains the physical hardware console port. For an example, see “Assigning the Hardware
Console LBA” on page 63.
NOTE Note the following when using virtual consoles:
• ioscan output
On a PA-RISC system, the ioscan output for vcn and vcs drivers show a value of NO_HW in
the S/W State column. This is normal.
On an Integrity system, the vPars virtual console is truly virtual and will not show up in an
ioscan. You can see this with the vparstatus -m command:
# vparstatus -m
Console path: No path as console is virtual
Monitor boot disk path: 13.0.11.1.0.8.0
Monitor boot filename: /stand/vpmon
Database filename: /stand/vpdb
Memory ranges used: 0x0/232611840 Monitor
0xddd6000/688128 firmware
0xde7e000/1384448 Monitor
0xdfd0000/33751040 firmware
0x10000000/134213632 Monitor
0x7fffe000/8192 firmware
0x8a0ff000000/16777216 firmware
• Potential for Lost Output
Because the console output is a circular buffer, output beyond the 8K is overwritten and
lost.