Installing and Managing HP-UX Virtual Partitions (includes A.04.02)

How vPars and its Components Work
Virtual Consoles
Chapter 2
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When the monarch CPU of the server is not assigned to any partition, you will see the
Monitor prompt. Press Ctrl-A to cycle to the console window of the next partition.
nPartition Logs
On an nPartition server running vPars, all virtual partitions within an nPartition share the same console
device: the nPartition’s console. Thus, an nPartition’s console log contains console IO for multiple virtual
partitions. Further, since the vPars Monitor interface is displayed and accessed through the nPartition’s
console, vPars Monitor output is also recorded in the nPartition’s console log. There is only one Monitor per
nPartition.
The server chassis logs record nPartition and server complex hardware events. The chassis logs do not
record vPars-related configuration or vPars boot events (PA-RISC only); however, the chassis logs do record
HP-UX "heartbeat" events. The server chassis logs are viewable from the GSPs Show Chassis Log menu. For
more information, see the Help within the GSPs online help.
The vPars Monitor event logs record only vPars events; it does not contain any nPartition chassis events.
For more information, see vparstatus (1M).
Also, for a given nPartition, the Virtual Front Panel (VFP) of the nPartition’s console displays an OS
heartbeat whenever at least one virtual partition within the nPartition is up.
MCA (Machine Check Abort) Logs on Integrity Systems
Description
An MCA is a processor interrupt that occurs when the processor discovers that it can not continue reliable
operation. An MCA can result from either a hardware problem (such as an uncorrectable data error in
memory or on a system bus) or from a software error (typically, in a driver). In most cases when an MCA
occurs, the system stops normal processing and takes an OS memory dump if possible. The firmware also
automatically logs data that can be used by HP tools to analyze the cause of the MCA. On reboot, this data is
read from firmware and saved in “MCA logs”.
Two different types of MCAs can occur. On an Integrity nPartition running vPars, the first type will only
affect one virtual partition and is called a “local MCA”. The second type will affect all the virtual partitions in
an nPartition and is called a “Global MCA”.
Location of Log Files
On an nPartition not running vPars, the MCA logs are gathered from the firmware during OS reboot and
saved in the /var/tombstones directory. Typically, multiple files are created of the form mca*.
When running vPars, logs from a local MCA are saved in the virtual partition that experienced the MCA.
Similar to the non-vPars configuration, these files are in the /var/tombstones directory of the virtual
partition. Logs from a global MCA are saved in the /var/tombstones directory of only one particular virtual
partition. The virtual partition that is used is the virtual partition that was booted from the same disk that
was used to boot the vPars Monitor; this disk must be the primary boot disk specified in the EFI Boot
Manager after the system reboots in vPars mode following an MCA.