Technical data

Managing nPartitions
Coordinating Changes to nPartitions
HP System Partitions Guide: Administration for nPartitions, rev 5.1 246
Coordinating Changes to nPartitions
When you modify nPartitions, you should perform your changes so that
they occur at a time when they will not conflict with other nPartition
changes in the same server complex.
The HP-UX nPartition configuration commands and the Partition
Manager utility coordinate their actions by using locks to restrict access
to portions of the server’s Complex Profile data while they modify that
data.
Commands and utilities can lock Stable Complex Configuration Data
and Partition Configuration Data to ensure that only the command
holding the lock can modify that portion of the Complex Profile.
In most cases, the nPartition commands and utilities will not have
locking conflicts because they can complete changes quickly (within
about a second), usually before any other commands attempt to modify
the same portion of the server’s Complex Profile data.
However, some nPartition changes involve locking parts of the Complex
Profile for a longer time.
• The Partition Manager utility locks all parts of the server’s Complex
Profile that it may potentially modify, and it keeps them locked for as
long as the associated menu items are being used.
For example, the Partition —> Create Partition menu item and the
Complex —> Set Complex Name menu item lock the Stable Complex
Configuration Data portion of the server’s Complex Profile. You
cannot use other tools to perform any tasks that modify the Stable
Complex Configuration Data (such as adding or removing cells) until
the task that acquired the lock completes or is canceled.
Likewise, the Partition —> Modify Partition menu item locks both the
Stable Complex Configuration Data as well as the selected
nPartition’s Partition Configuration Data. As a result, no other tool
(including another instance of Partition Manager) can add or remove
cells or modify the selected nPartition until this task has completed
or been canceled.
Some tasks performed through Partition Manager also require
performing a reboot for reconfig to release locks (for example,
removing an active cell from an nPartition).