Which is it: 32 or 64 bits ?

[Serge Poitras]

Good day fellow HP'ers,

I'm looking into the following to assist a co-worker on a question he came up with, only to realize that one of my servers displays the same information, regarding determining if the OS version installed is 32 bits only, 32 or 64, or 64 only ?

We ran the following commands:

# model
(his) 9000/800/rp4440
(mine) 9000/800/rp8420
# getconf KERNEL_BITS
(mine & his) 64
# getconf HW_CPU_SUPP_BITS
(mine & his) 64


This information leads me to believe that I currently am running on 64 bit…….
But here's where it gets confusing:

When we run, we both get:

# getconf HW_32_64_CAPABLE
1


According to some of the HP literature I am getting on the HP website:

HW_32_64_CAPABLE:

"Returns a value of 1, 2, or 3 specifying whether the hardware is capable of supporting only 32-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit, or only 64-bit operation. Note that this is a hardware specific function and is not the same as HW_CPU_SUPP_BITS. The values are:

1 - 32-bit only
2 - 32-bit and 64-bit
3 - 64-bit only"

The first 3 command outputs tell me that I am running 64 bits, however the last one will counter-indicate the first 3 command outputs ?

1- Am I reading this wrong ?
2- Could there be an unknown problem with the last command used ?
3- Which should be "trusted" ?

My thanks and appreciation in advance to all who reply back.

Sincerely,
Serge Poitras

[Pete Randall]

Serge,

I'm not sure about the rp4440, but your rp8420 is incapable of running 32-bit:

http://www.testdrive.hp.com/STKT/serversupport.html


Pete

[Andrew Rutter]

hi,

You are running a 64bit kernel version of Hpux from your output.

The capable bit means that the system is infact capable of running either 32bit or 64bit kernel.

You can also check the version by looking in sam
performance monitors
system properties

this should also tell you that you are running hpux 11.x at 64bit kernel



Andy

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

I just found a hardcopy reference that shows the rp4440 running only 11iV2, which, I believe, is only 64bit. I would say that the HW_32_64_CAPABLE documentation is backwards. A value of 1 should indicate 64 bit only and a value of 3 should be 32 bit only!


Pete

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Serge:

# getconf HW_CPU_SUPP_BITS

This will show what you *can* run, whereas

# getconf KERNEL_BITS

Shows what you *are* running.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Serge Poitras]

Pete & Andrew,

Thanks very much for the quick replies.

I do know that I'm running 64 bits, my question was more a clarification on why the :
# getconf HW_32_64_CAPABLE

..returned values that seems incorrect, or as Pete states, seem to be displayed in the reverse order.

Both your replis have provided me with very useful data and points have been accorded to all replies.

Once again, thanks very much for your help.
Rgds,
Serge

[Dave Unverhau_1]

Serge,

I just checked the value of HW_32_64_CAPABLE on my sandbox system (an old 700-series workstation capable of only 32-bit operation), and the value returned was 2. Either there's something wrong with the way getconf handles the HW_32_64_CAPABLE value or our info on the meaning is wrong. In fact, it can't even be just backwards as Pete suggested, because my little 715 is NOT 64-bit capable.

Best Regards,

Dave

[Serge Poitras]

In lieu of all the information gathered/received, it does look more and more that the way "getconf" reads the HW_CPU_SUPP_BITS is incorrect. Now if it does indeed display it backwards or just displays it like it does, there is a problem with the way the data retreived, is displayed (interpreted).

Guess this could warrant a fix to the HP lab folks, in a patch down the road...

Once again, thanks to all for your help in this matter, it all proved very useful.

Cheers,
Serge

*** Closing thread at this point. ***

[Serge Poitras]

See previous last reply for summary.

[Ted Buis]

The rp4440 is only supported with the 64-bit version of HP-UX by HP. With 64-bit HP-UX, you can run either 32 bit or 64 bit binary applications. The PA-8000 (PA-RISC 2.0) processor chips and higher are 64-bit processors in that they have 64-bit registers and can manipulate 64-bit values, but they also also support the 32-bit instructions and registers from PA-RISC 1.1. PA-RISC 2.0 is a superset of PA-RISC 1.1. There are 32-bit version of HP-UX for the older servers with the PA-7xxx (32-bit) processors.