VPARS

[Nobody's Hero]

I have an N class that I am installing 11.11 on. Then I am going to install VPAR software. I want to split the box into system 'a' and 'b'. Question:

If I have to reboot 'a', system 'b' will also be rebooted because they share the same bus?

[Ted Ellis_2]

of course.. I do not about VPARS, so you may get some software level partitioning, but reboot the server and the hardware will get reset, taking everything with it

Ted

[Ted Ellis_2]

is this an N4000? For partitioning to work the way you sound like you want it to, you need the rp8400 or better. If might be able to have 2 different boot disks, but you only be able to run one at a time on the N4000 / rp7400 and below.

Ted

[Nobody's Hero]

Yes this is for an N4000. I am confused. Some of the documentation states that you can shutdown a particular partition without effecting the other. Is this true? Can anyone shed some light on this issue?

Here is the example in the docs. The command is :To shutdown the partition winona1:

winona1# vparstatus winona1# shutdown -h


Does this only effect that partition, and the other stays active?

[Ted Ellis_2]

is there any information in the documentation that discusses platform requirements? Like having a system that is designed to be partitioned? The N4000 is not.... while Superdome and rp8400 are...

Be interesting to see what this software days on that... I'd love to know too :-)

Ted

[Nobody's Hero]

The docs that I am reading state that platforms must run 11i, which I already know.
The supported platforms for vpars is the L3000 and the N4000. Are the docs incorrect?

[Nobody's Hero]

Here is the doc statement:

Supported Environments




Hardware



L3000

Required firmware version: 41.02.


N-class

Required firmware version: 41.02.


Superdome is not supported in the first release; it is planned for support in a future release.
Operating Systems



All virtual partitions must run HP-UX 11i (December 2000 Release or later) in 64-bit mode on PA-RISC platforms.

[Nobody's Hero]

Sorry,
Actually, here is the link to the whole doc.

http://www.docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/T1335-90001/T1335-90001.html

[harry d brown jr]

Hi Robert,

Post your vpar database that you plan on using.

Remember that partitions can not share IO cards or IO devices.

live free or die
harry

[harry d brown jr]

Robert,

Also, get this book

HP-ux virtual partitions
Marty Poniatowski

http://www.hp.com/hpbooks/prentice/ptr_0130352128.html


live free or die
harry

[Nobody's Hero]

Harry,

I am still in the early planing stages. I havent decided how many partitions or which cpus they will use and which I/O devices they will use. Before I continue planning, all I need to know is if I can boot an N4000 partition without effecting the other.

[harry d brown jr · Accepted solution]

Here are a few samples:

TWO partition example:

vparcreate -p hydra0 -D hydra_vpdb -a cpu:33 -a mem::1280 -a io:0/0 -a io:0/0/2/0.6.0:boot
vparcreate -p hydra1 -D hydra_vpdb -a cpu:37 -a mem::1280 -a io:0/12 -a io:0/2 -a io:0/2/0/0.98.67.19.0.1.0:boot

*********************
6 partition example:

vparcreate -p vpart1 -a cpu:33 -a mem::1280 -a io:0/0 -a io:0/0/2/0.6.0:boot
vparcreate -p vpart2 -a cpu:37 -a mem::1280 -a io:0/10 -a io:0/10/0/0.8.0.255.0.0.0:boot -a io:1/0
vparcreate -p vpart3 -a cpu:41 -a mem::1280 -a io:0/2 -a io:0/2/0/0.8.0.255.0.0.0:boot -a io:1/8
vparcreate -p vpart4 -a cpu:45 -a mem::1280 -a io:1/10 -a io:1/10/0/0.8.0.255.0.3.0:boot -a io:1/2
vparcreate -p vpart5 -a cpu:101 -a mem::1280 -a io:1/12 -a io:1/12/0/0.8.0.255.0.3.0:boot -a io:1/4
vparcreate -p vpart6 -a cpu:109 -a mem::1280 -a io:0/8 -a io:0/5
-a io:0/8/0/0.8.0.255.0.6.0:boot

First thing to do is install ONE OS on the INTERNAL disks. Then using the IOSCAN, print_manifest, and your configuration (# of cpu's per partition, amt of memory, lan cards, IO cards to external disk), determine how you want to CARVE the machine up.

BTW, you can boot, shutdown, reboot, halt, any partition without effecting the other partitions! But if you TOC the machine, you crash the entire machine.


live free or die
harry

[Anonymous]

Ted,
"reboot the server and the hardware will get reset, taking everything with it"
is true _without_ vPar.

vPar puts a "vpmon" layer in between hw and hpux (you boot /stand/vpmon, vpmon checks it's database where to boot the os images from).

Sure- if you toc or reset the box from gsp you kick off vpmon, too. But if you eg just install patches or do a shutdown -r 0 to adjust some kernel parameters .... you even skip the HW selftest! (saves 5..10..30min?) That's rather cool I'd say;-)

However, if you go vPar get an ignite server first (on a different box, of course).

att'ing a small set of links
I've complied to convince some colleagues...