HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0 Administrator Guide HP-UX 11i v3 (September 2011 Update and Later) on HP Integrity Server Blade HP Part Number: 5900-1903 Published: February 2012 Edition: 2.
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Contents 1 Introduction...............................................................................................5 Overview................................................................................................................................5 HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0 – the new virtual partitions management model....................................5 How does vPars v6.0 differ from its earlier versions.......................................................................
vPars v6.0 commands logging.................................................................................................33 vPars v6.0 resources information (vparstatus)..............................................................................33 Display formats..................................................................................................................33 Display groups.................................................................................................................
1 Introduction HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0 (vPars v6.0) is the new generation of the HP-UX Virtual Partitions product family. This new version expands vPars functionality to the Integrity blade servers. vPars v6.0 provides workload flexibility through the ability to add and remove CPUs from a running virtual partition. Shared I/Os in vPars v6.0 increases flexibility through the ability to efficiently share storage HBAs and NICs between virtual partitions.
Figure 1 (page 6) illustrates the vPars v6.0 framework. Figure 1 vPars v6.0 framework How does vPars v6.0 differ from its earlier versions To improve management of virtual partitions, in vPars v6.0, the management of virtual partitions is now converged under an overall management framework founded on the HP Integrity Virtual Machines management software. The new framework expands the functionality of vPars to Integrity blades. This section briefly describes some of the major differences.
Table 1 New vPar management commands in HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0 Command Description vparconsole A command that provides connection to the virtual console of a specified virtual partition. Each virtual partition has its own virtual console from which you can manage the virtual partition operating environment. vparhwmgmt A command that helps manage the virtual partition resource pool, that is, the pool of CPU resources dedicated for use by the vPars.
increases the flexibility of the HBA or NIC, preserves performance, and solves the I/O slot limitation issues prevalent in earlier versions of vPars. In vPars v6.0, the granularity of I/O assignment is flexible and allows multiple vPars to share the bandwidth of a physical connection. In earlier versions of vPars, I/O assignment is at the slot granularity, and all physical connections of a multi-function I/O card are owned by a single vPar.
2 How vPars v6.0 and its components work The virtual partition management architecture in vPars v6.0 is designed to provide a common manageability framework for both virtual partitions and virtual machines. This architecture builds upon the vPars strengths of scalability and dedicated cores and memory resources, and gains benefits of HP virtual machines manageability. The main components that make the vPars v6.
IMPORTANT: partition. vPars commands are not available on the OA, the iLO, or from within the virtual Dedicated cores and memory This component allows you to provide dedicated processing cores and memory for each vPar. It enables you to add and remove cores from running vPars using CLI and the GUI that is accessible from the HP SMH of the VSP. This component is locality aware and allocates the best available CPUs and memory for vPars when the vPar is started, and makes it easier to configure vPars.
3 Planning your system for vPars v6.0 When planning your system for vPars v6.0, it is important to consider the following aspects: • Configuration of the virtual partitions. • The required number of virtual partitions. • The names of the virtual partitions. • The required amount of processing cores. • The memory required for each vPar. • The I/O bandwidth requirement for networking and mass storage. • The types and amounts of I/O required.
Minimum requirements for a virtual partition Each virtual partition requires a minimum of: • One dedicated processing core. • Sufficient memory to run HP-UX 11i v3 and applications. For the minimum amount of memory required, see the applicable HP-UX Install and Update Guide for your OS. • Shared I/O device. This can be a physical disk, logical volume, disk on a SAN via an NPIV HBA, or others. For more information, see the vparresources3(5) manpage. • A port on a vswitch.
of the vPars is less than 8 GB at all times. The peaks of the vPars bandwidth requirements should not intersect as it may result in an unpredictable performance. LORA support Locality-Optimized Resource Alignment (LORA) support provides the vPars processor core selection algorithms to enable CPU allocation based on memory proximity to the partition.
4 Installing and configuring HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0 Installation requirements vPar v6.0 is created on the VSP after installing Virtual Partition Software BB068AA and VirtualBase on the VSP from a distribution media. Table 2 (page 14) lists the software products that must be installed on the VSP and on vPars v6.0.
BB068AA VirtualBase 3. 4. 5. 6. Allow HP-UX to boot. Create one or more virtual switches using the vparnet command. Configure the VSP. For information about what must be done, see “Configuring the VSP” (page 15) Create virtual partitions on the VSP after HP-UX boots. Use the vparcreate and vparmodify commands to create and modify vPars on the VSP. For information about configuring NPIV, see the “Configuring an NPIV HBA” (page 16) section.
NOTE: VSP. The vparhwmgmt command does not allow adjustment of the memory allocated to the The sum of the VSP and vPar core counts cannot exceed the number of cores on the system. Hence, any adjustment you make to the VSP core count will affect the cores available to the vPars. While adjusting the VSP core count, if you exceed the system core count, and if the vPars are already configured, an error occurs.
vPar 6.0 allows you to create such virtual ports over a physical port on the VSP and then allocate them as resources to a vPar. This means, with NPIV support, the resource that gets added to the vPar is not a disk, tape, DVD, changer or a burner, but a virtual Host Bus Adapter referred to as NPIV HBA. The vPar then discovers targets and devices behind the NPIV HBA using the same mechanism that is used on the native host to discover devices behind a physical HBA.
The following sections describe how an NPIV HBA resource is specified and how the existing vPar commands are used to configure and manage them. Specifying an NPIV HBA resource An NPIV resource is specified using the following format: devicetype:adaptertype:bus,device,vWWP,vWWN:storage:device where: devicetype The virtual device type as seen in the vPar. For NPIV this will be hba. adaptertype The adapter type as seen in the vPar. For NPIV, the adaptor type is avio_stor.
To add an NPIV resource – vparcreate and vparmodify You can specify an NPIV HBA resource using vparcreate while creating the vPar or using the vparmodify command after the vPar is created. For information about the resource string format used to specify the NPIV HBA, see the “Specifying an NPIV HBA resource” (page 18) section. IMPORTANT: Before creating an NPIV HBA, ensure that the physical HBAs on the system support NPIV. You can use the fcmsutil command to determine whether NPIV is supported.
Example 5 Deleting an NPIV resource vparmodify -P vPar1 -d hba:avio_stor:,,0x50060b00006499b9, 0x50060b00006499ba:npiv:/dev/fcd1 For the relevant vPar, you can use this syntax by copying it from the I/O details of the vparstatus command output and pasting it where required. Removing HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0 You can remove the HP-UX vPars v6.
5 vPars v6.0 commands After installing vPars v6.0, you can run the commands from the VSP. In vPars v6.0, all the commands are available from the VSP. IMPORTANT: vPars commands are not available from within a virtual partition. VSP commands From the VSP you can run commands to create, modify, and remove virtual partitions and virtual switches. Superuser privilege is required to run the commands from the VSP. These commands cannot be run from the OA or from inside a virtual partition.
Example 6 Boot the virtual partition named Oslo vparboot -p Oslo vparcreate The vparcreate command allows you to create a new virtual partition. Table 7 (page 22) describes the options you can use with the vparcreate command. Table 7 Options with the vparcreate command. Option Description -a rsrc Adds resources to a virtual partition. The rsrc is a physical or virtualized hardware resource specification using a resource statement.
Table 7 Options with the vparcreate command. (continued) Option Description -K console_ip Specifies the IP address to connect to the Virtual iLO Remote Console of the virtual partition. The address must be in IPv4 dot notation. If the -K option is specified, the -L option must also be specified. If the console_ip is not set, the remote console is not started. The console can only be accessed from the VSP, that is, the virtual console can be accessed only using the vparconsole command.
Table 8 Options with the vparmodify command. (continued) Option Description -d rsrc Deletes resources from a virtual partition. -m rsrc Modifies existing resources in a virtual partition. The rsrc is a physical or virtualized hardware resource specification using a resource statement. The table here shows a summary of resource statement syntax forms for -m rsrc.
Table 8 Options with the vparmodify command. (continued) Option Description specifies the privilege level — admin or oper — available at the virtual console. -x active_config={true | false} Indicates whether the configuration of a vPar is active or inactive. By default, a configuration created using the vparcreate command is considered active.
Example 12 Remove the virtual partition named Oslo vparremove -p Oslo -f vparreset The vparreset command allows you to reset a virtual partition. This command simulates at the virtual partition level, the hard reset, soft reset (Transfer Of Control, TOC), power off, or graceful shutdown operations supported by server management processor commands. This command may be used as a means to restart or bring down an unresponsive virtual partition.
Table 11 Options with the vparstatus command. (continued) Option Description -A Displays information about available resources, that is, those not assigned to any virtual partition, in the current VSP database. One resource is displayed per line. -M Displays resource information, the local virtual partition name, or the revisions of partition management in a machine-readable format.
Example 15 Display a summary format of all resources in all virtual partitions # vparstatus [Virtual Partition] Num Name === ========================== 1 vpar1 2 vpar2 RunState ============ UP DOWN [Virtual Partition Resource Summary] Virtual Partition CPU Num Name Min/Max === ========================== ======= 1 vpar1 1/127 2 vpar2 1/127 Num CPUs ==== 1 2 State ========= Active Inactive Num IO ==== 2 1 Total MB Memory ========= 5120 2048 Example 16 Display the detailed attributes and resources of vp
Table 12 Options with the vparhwmgmt command. Option Description -p pool-name Specifies the resource pool available for use by the vPars. Currently, only the CPU pool is supported for modification. The memory pool can be specified for display only. The CPU and memory pools refer to the pool of resources available for use by the vPars. -a rsrc Adds the resources specified by rsrc to the pool.
Table 13 Options with the vparnet command. (continued) Option Description -v Displays the version number of the hpvmnet output format. The version number is displayed first, followed by the display specified by the other options. In addition, it also displays VLAN information. -V Displays information about vswitches in verbose mode. -A Displays statistics for the avio_lan virtual network interfaces. -M Displays verbose resource information in a machine-readable format.
vparconsole The vparconsole command allows you to connect to the virtual console of a virtual partition. Table 14 (page 31) describes the options you can use with the vparconsole command. Table 14 Options with the vparconsole command. Option Description -p vpar_id Specifies the number or name of the virtual partition to be booted. -c command Provides a console command to be performed before reading from standard input. The -c option is provided for scripting and logging purposes.
Creating a vPar instance – an example Example 20 Creating a vPar instance # vparstatus vparstatus: No vPars are currently configured.
For more information on manpage keywords and using catman -w, see the manpage catman(1M) and the manual HP-UX Systems Administration Guide (11.31), available on the BSC website at www.hp.com/go/hpux-core-docs. vPars v6.0 commands logging The vPar commands that are carried out are logged in the command log file on the VSP, under /var/opt/hpvm/common/command.log. For example, when the following command is carried out: vparcreate -P vpar1 the following entry is logged in the command.
CPU, I/O, memory The summary and detailed machine-readable memory allocation displays include memory in total megabytes. The CPU section includes the number of CPUs assigned to the virtual partition. The virtual I/O section defines the virtual I/O devices assigned to the virtual partition.
Active vPars Following are the possible run-states of an active virtual partition: • FWBOOT. The virtual partition normally reaches this run-state while the partition is starting. This is a transitional run-state and normally reaches EFI run-state. • EFI. The virtual partition reaches this run-state after the firmware boot process launches the EFI shell. • UP. The virtual partition is in this run-state when the operating system is booting or completely functional. • ATTN.
6 Creating and managing virtual partitions To create and manage virtual partitions, you must run appropriate commands from the VSP or use the HP-UX Integrity Virtual Server Manager, the GUI application that can be accessed from the Tools page in HP SMH of the VSP. This chapter discusses the various tasks that can be performed from the VSP using commands. For tasks you can perform using the GUI, see the HP-UX Integrity Virtual Server Manager Help that comes with the GUI application.
Table 15 Attributes of a virtual partition in vPars v6.0 (continued) vPar attribute Description Command option Default value to a vPar must be the total of the following: • The amount of memory required by the operating environment in the vPar. • The amount of memory required by the applications running on the vPar. I/O (virtual devices) You can allocate virtual network -a rsrc switches and virtual storage devices to the virtual partition.
Table 15 Attributes of a virtual partition in vPars v6.0 (continued) 38 vPar attribute Description Command option IPv4 subnet mask for accessing the Virtual iLO Remote Console To access the Virtual iLO Remote -L netmask Console of the vPar if you have specified its IP address using the -K option, then you must specify the IPv4 subnet mask for accessing the Virtual iLO Remote Console for the vPar. Default value Not applicable.
Example 22 Create a default virtual partition Run the vparcreate command to create a basic virtual partition with the default values of 1 CPU, 2 GB memory, and no I/O. Later, use the vparmodify command to add I/O and modify other attributes. # vparcreate [Creating vPar0001.
For additional information about configuring NPIV, see the vparresources3(5) manpage and the relevant NPIV sections in this guide.
the vparconsole command to start, and enter the console in interactive mode right after the start. Example 27 Boot the virtual partition called Oslo vparboot -p Oslo OR vparconsole -P Oslo -fic pc -on NOTE: If you have a boot disk for a vPar, and the vPar is deleted, and another vPar is built using the same boot disk, when the new vPar boots, the OS will assign a new LAN instance number or ID to the NIC, even if the new vPar has exactly the same resources as the old one.
Example 28 Modify a virtual partition with vHBA Add a virtualized hba, using NPIV ports (manually assigning port and node WWNs) # vparmodify -p Oslo -a \ hba:avio_stor:,,0x100000110a030000,0x100000110a030001:npiv:/dev/fcd0 NOTE: If you want to create a vPar that has access to the same storage as a different vPar or the VSP, or re-create a vPar configuration, giving it the same storage access, you can manually assign the port and node worldwide names, as in the example.
Hard reset The hard reset is equivalent to specifying RS command in the management processor. You should only do a hard reset if you cannot get the OS issue its own reboot or shutdown process. The virtual partition will be restarted after the hard reset. To hard reset a vPar named Oslo, run the following command: vparreset -f -p Oslo -h Power off The power off option -d is useful to break out of a reboot loop, that is, when you do not want the vPar to be rebooted.
vparremove -p Oslo -f Removing and recreating a virtual partition If you remove a vPar configuration, and recreate it using the vparcreate command, the newly created vPar might have not have the same hardware paths for network and storage devices. This could change the LAN instance number. In such a case, you must update the netconf file with the new instance number. When the LAN instance number is incorrect, the network is inaccessible and startup scripts will hang until they timeout.
Configuring storage for a vPar with NPIV HBAs You can assign storage for a vPar with an NPIV HBA either before or after the vPar starts up. In both cases, the vPar will boot if it already has a non-NPIV boot device configured. If it does not have a boot device yet, then the vPar boot will halt at EFI. To configure storage for a vPar with NPIV HBA: 1. Start the vPar.
Example 30 Identifying NPIV HBAs and devices in a vPar # ioscan -kfNd gvsd Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description ext_bus ext_bus ext_bus gvsd gvsd gvsd INTERFACE INTERFACE INTERFACE VPAR AVIO Stor Adapter VPAR NPIV Stor Adapter VPAR NPIV Stor Adapter 0 1 4 0/0/0/0 0/0/4/0 0/1/3/0 CLAIMED CLAIMED CLAIMED Note that the ioscan output listing the NPIV devices in the vPar is exactly the same as a similar listing of SAN LUNs in a native host.
operation might not be successful. When vparreset -g does not succeed, consider the following additional operations: • Use the vparreset -t command if you want to initiate a transfer of control operation. This option restarts the vPar. Also, a dump of the OS is collected if there is sufficient space. The dump information can later be used to troubleshoot the unresponsiveness of the vPar. • Use the vparreset -h command to hard reset the vPar. This option restarts the vPar without collecting an OS dump.
7 Log files, backing up, restoring, and recovering Log files The vPars v6.0 components use multiple log files, all of which are located on the VSP. Following is a list of the log files: • /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log • /var/opt/hpvm/common/hpvm_mon_log • /var/opt/hpvm/common/command.
8 Support and other resources Contacting HP Before you contact HP Be sure to have the following information available before you call contact HP: • Technical support registration number (if applicable) • Product serial number • Product model name and number • Product identification number • Applicable error message • Add-on boards or hardware • Third-party hardware or software • Operating system type and revision level HP contact information For the name of the nearest HP authorized reseller
Table 16 Documentation and its location Documents Website HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0 Release Notes www.hp.com/go/hpux-vpars-docs HP-UX vPars 6.0 N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) (whitepaper) www.hp.com/go/hpux-vpars-docs HP-UX GUID Manager Administrator Guide http://www.hp.com/go/hpux-vpars-docs and http://www.hp.com/ go/insightdynamics-manuals • HP Integrity Virtual Server Manager User Guide http://www.hp.com/go/matrixoe/docs and http://www.hp.
[] The contents are optional in syntax. If the contents are a list separated by |, you must choose one of the items. {} The contents are required in syntax. If the contents are a list separated by |, you must choose one of the items. ... The preceding element can be repeated an arbitrary number of times. Indicates the continuation of a code example. | Separates items in a list of choices.
Glossary Accelerated Virtual Input/Output See AVIO. APA Auto Port Aggregation. assignable resource The resources that you can designate to be assigned to a partition. AVIO Accelerated Virtual Input/Output. An I/O protocol that improves virtual I/O performance for network and storage devices used within the Integrity VM environment. The protocol also enables support for a greater number of virtual I/O devices per vPar. Special drivers are required on both the VSP and vPars.
ILM Interleaved Memory. Is implemented as Partition Memory in HP Superdome 2, which includes Direct Access Partition Memory and Agent Access Partition Memory LORA Locality-Optimized Resource Alignment is a framework for increasing system performance by exploiting the locality domains in HP servers with Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA). White paper is available at: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/ c02070810/c02070810.pdf. NIC Network Interface Card.
A vPars v6.0 limits Table 17 vPar v6.0 limits — CPU/Memory CPU/Memory Support Minimum cores per vPar 1 Maximum cores per vPar Cores available in system – VSP cores Minimum memory per vPar 2 GB Maximum memory per vPar Memory available in system – VSP memory Table 18 vPar v6.0 limits — Maximum virtual partitions Server Maximum virtual partitions supported BL860c i2 7 BL870c i2 15 BL890c i2 31 Table 19 vPar v6.
Index A access, 7 architecture components, 9 B back up, 48 BL8x0c i2 support,server, 5 boot, 40 C CLI interface, 9 commands, 21 comparison, 8 components architecture, 9 configuration, 11 configuration file, 8 configuring, 14 VSP, 15 contact, 49 CPU, 7, 54 core, 12 limits, 40 CPU-add, 40 CPU-delete, 40 create manage, 36 name, 36 vPars, 22, 32 D database, 8 deallocate shadow configuration, 46 defined state, 34 delete NPIV, 19 delete-NPIV, 19 differences, 6, 8 disk NPIV, 46 display, 33 resources, 33 documen
vPars, 23 V recover nonresponsive, 46 recovery vPars, 48 recreate remove, 44 related documentation, 49 remote console iLO, 10 remove delete, 20 vPars, 25, 43 requirements, 12, 17 installation, 14 reset restart, 42 vPars, 26 restore, 48 run-state run state, 34 vHBA, 17 view, 26 status, 42 virtual console remote console, 7 vPars, 31 virtual machines VM, 8 virtual partitions VSP, 5 Virtual Partitions product manpages, 32 virtual switch, 29 vparboot boot, 21 vparconsole virtual console, 31 vparcreate cpu, 40
