HP Superdome 2 Partitioning Administrator Guide HP-UX 11i v3 (766170-001, May 2014)

6 Booting and resetting Partitions (nPartitions and vPars)
This chapter introduces Partition system boot and reset concepts, configuration options, and
procedures for booting and resetting Partitions. This chapter covers boot details for HP-UX 11i v3
operating system and the OA CLI and GUI.
This chapter discusses the following topics:
• “Overview of Partition system booting” (page 51)
• “Booting to UEFI and preparing for Operating System installation” (page 51)
• “Task Summaries for Rebooting and Resetting Partitions” (page 60)
• “HP Superdome 2 Boot Support” (page 74)
• “nPartition and Resource Health Status” (page 76)
Overview of Partition system booting
This section provides an overview of the partition system boot process for HP Superdome 2 systems.
On HP Superdome 2 with enclosures and blades, system resources are configured into one or
more nPartitions. The nPartitions may be further divided into virtual partitions (vPars). Each nPartition
includes the blades (with processors and memory) assigned to it and one or more I/O bays in the
I/O expansion enclosure. Each vPar includes CPU cores, memory, and I/O that may be addressed
at the individual slot level.
A partition (nPartition or vPar) can boot and reboot independently of any other Partitions in the
same server complex. Each partition runs its own firmware and has its own system boot environment.
Partitions provide hardware and software fault isolation: a reset, TOC, or MCA in one Partition
does not affect any other Partition. The OA provides commands to boot a partition.
An nPartition provides a platform for booting an operating system that is electrically isolated from
other partitions in the complex. You can choose to run either a single OS instance, an Integrity
VM host (and guests), or vPar in any nPartition.
You can configure and manage partitions using the Onboard Partition Manager. For more
information on launching OA CLI and OA GUI, see “Accessing the OA” (page 10).
Booting to UEFI and preparing for Operating System installation
You can access a partition's console and its UEFI system boot environment through the OA. Each
partition has its own system boot environment that provides you a method for interacting with the
partition before an operating system has booted on it. The system boot environment is accessible
through the partition console during the time after the blades assigned to the partition have powered
on and completed nPartition rendezvous and before the partition begins loading an operating
system.
This section discusses the following topics:
• “Booting from the CLI ” (page 52)
• “Booting from the GUI” (page 53)
• “Getting a Console using the CLI” (page 55)
• “Getting a Console using the GUI” (page 56)
• “Confirming the Installed IO cards” (page 58)
• “Getting MAC Addresses for Ignite-UX” (page 60)
Overview of Partition system booting 51