Planning Your Virtual Partitions

Virtual Partitions Layout Plan

Before you install vPars, you should have a plan of how you want to configure the virtual partitions within your server.

Example of a virtual partition plan for vPars A.04.xx based on the example cellular server:  

Partition Name	keira1	keira2	keira3
Assigned CPUs (A.04.xx)	num = 2	num = 1 and 1 from cell 1	num = 1
Unassigned CPUs (A.04.xx)	three CPUs are available
Memory	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB
I/O LBAs	1.0.0 0.0.1	1.0.4 1.0.1	0.0.0 0.0.2
Boot Path	1/0/0/3/0.6.0.0.6.0	1/0/4/1/0/4/0.1.0.0.0.0.1	0/0/0/3/0.6.0
LAN	0/0/1/1/0/4/0	1/0/1/1/0/4/0	0/0/2/1/0
console port (PA-RISC Only)	owned by keira1
Autoboot	AUTO	MANUAL	AUTO

Example of a virtual partition plan for vPars A.03.xx based on the example non-cellular server:  

Partition Name	winona1	winona2	winona3
Bound CPUs (A.03.xx)	total = 2 min = 2	total = 2 min = 2 paths = 41,45	total = 1 min = 1
Unbound CPUs (A.03.xx)	three CPUs are available
Memory	1024 MB	1280 MB	1280 MB
I/O LBAs	0.0 0.4	0.8 1.10	0.5 1.4
Boot Path	0.0.2.0.6.0	0.8.0.0.5.0	1.4.0.0.5.0
LAN	0.0.0.0	1.10.0.0.4.0	0.5.0.0.4.0
console port	owned by winona1
Autoboot	AUTO	AUTO	AUTO

	NOTE: When you create a partition, the vPars Monitor assumes you will boot and use the partition. Therefore, even if a partition is down, the resources assigned to the partition cannot be used by any other partition.

The next few sections will describe how we arrived at each portion of the partition plan.

Number of Virtual Partitions

For the latest information on the recommended and maximum number of virtual partitions per system or nPartition, see the document HP-UX Virtual Partitions Ordering and Configuration Guide available at:

http://docs.hp.com/en/vse.html#Virtual%20Partitions

Virtual Partition Names

All virtual partitions must be given text names that are used by the vPars commands. The names can consists of only alphanumeric characters and periods (’.’). The maximum length of a name is 239 characters.

HP recommends using the corresponding hostnames for virtual partition names, but they are not internally related.

For our cellular server, we have chosen the names of our virtual partitions to be keira1, keira2, and keira3:

For our non-cellular server, we have chosen the names of our virtual partitions to be winona1, winona2, and winona3:

Although the underscore (_) is a legal character within the name of a virtual partition, it is not a legal character within the Domain Name System (DNS).

	TIP: Virtual Partitions on nPartitions If you are using vPars on a complex, you may want to distinguish the names of your virtual partitions from the names of your nPartitions to avoid confusion.

Minimal Hardware Configuration

Every bootable virtual partition must have at least:

Although not required for booting a virtual partition, you can add LAN card(s) as required for networking.

For your virtual partitions, use the number of CPUs, amount of memory, boot disk configuration, and lan cards as is appropriate for your OS and applications.

CPUs

For detailed information on CPU allocation, read “CPU”.

The ioscan output for the example non-cellular (winona) and cellular (keira) systems show the following CPUs:

vPars A.04.xx and later

For this example, keira1 will have two CPUs, keira2 will have two CPUs, and keira3 will have one CPU.

Partition Name	keira1	keira2	keira3
Assigned CPUs	num = 2	num = 1 and 1 from cell 1	num = 1

We have three CPUs that were not assigned to any of the virtual partitions, so we will have three CPUs available.

Unassigned CPUs

three CPUs are available

vPars A.03.xx and earlier

For this example, winona1 will have two bound CPUs, winona2 will have two bound CPUs where the hardware paths will be 41 and 45, and winona3 will have one bound CPU.

Partition Name	winona1	winona2	winona3
Bound CPUs	total = 2 min = 2	total = 2 min = 2 paths = 41,45	total = 1 min = 1

Unbound CPUs are assigned in quantity. We have three CPUs that were not assigned to any of the virtual partitions, so we will have three unbound CPUs available.

Unbound CPUs

three CPUs are available

Memory

For detailed information on memory allocation, read “Memory: Allocation Notes”. If you are planning an A.05 system, you should also see “Memory: Topics”.

	NOTE: The default memory assigned to a virtual partition is 0 MB, so you need to specify enough memory for your applications and the operating system. While there is no specific minimum base memory requirement per vPar, the HPUX kernel does require a certain amount of base memory to boot successfully. For this reason, we currently recommend that 1 GB of base memory is assigned per vpar. The more base memory a virtual partition has, the better the performance will be. This is especially true of applications that require large amounts of locked memory. See the Installation and Update Guide for your OS and the nPartition Administrator’s Guide.

In our examples, we will use the following sizes:

Partition Name	keira1	keira2	keira3
Memory	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB

Partition Name	winona1	winona2	winona3
Memory	1024 MB	1280 MB	1280 MB

I/O

For detailed information on I/O Assignments, see “I/O: Allocation Notes”.

For simplified I/O block diagrams of the LBA to physical slot relationship of PA-RISC systems, see Appendix A.

Assigning I/O at the LBA Level

Looking at the full ioscan output to verify that we have the desired I/O for each virtual partition, we will assign the I/O at the LBA level. (When assigning hardware at the LBA level to a partition, all hardware at and below the specified LBA is assigned to the partition.)

For our example non-cellular (winona) and cellular (keira) systems , the ioscan output shows the LBAs as:

keira# ioscan -k | grep "Bus Adapter" 0/0/0 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 0/0/1 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 0/0/2 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 0/0/4 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 0/0/6 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 0/0/8 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 0/0/10 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 0/0/12 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 0/0/14 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 1/0/0 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 1/0/1 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 1/0/2 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 1/0/4 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 1/0/6 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 1/0/8 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 1/0/10 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 1/0/12 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783) 1/0/14 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (783)

winona# ioscan -k | grep "Bus Adapter" 0/0 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 0/1 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 0/2 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 0/4 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 0/5 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 0/8 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 0/10 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 0/12 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 1/0 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 1/2 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 1/4 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 1/8 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 1/10 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782) 1/12 ba Local PCI Bus Adapter (782)

Partition Name	keira1	keira2	keira3
I/O LBAs	1.0.0 (boot) 0.0.1 (lan)	1.0.4 (boot) 1.0.1 (lan)	0.0.0 (boot) 0.0.2 (lan)

Partition Name	winona1	winona2	winona3
I/O LBAs	0.0 boot/lan 0.4	0.8 boot 1.10 lan	0.5 lan 1.4 boot

Assigning the Hardware Console LBA

One of the virtual partitions must own the LBA that contains the physical hardware console port. In our example server, the hardware console port is at 0/0/4/0, which uses the LBA at 0/0. The LBA 0/0 is owned by the partition winona1:

console port	0.0.4.0	1/0/0/0/1
LBA	0.0	1.0.0
partition	winona1	keira1
console port	owned by winona1	owned by keira1

	CAUTION: The A.03.xx releases of vPars require the first virtual partition to own the LBA for the physical hardware console port. For the example above, when we create the virtual partitions, we would create winona1 and keira1 first.

	CAUTION: vPars Console Assignment on sx2000-based Servers  The console UART for sx2000-based servers is no longer on a PCI card, and the system console is memory mapped and moved to PDH. Hence, there is no LBA component for the console to be assigned to a virtual partition. Thus, for sx2000-based servers, you must assign the console by hardware path to a virtual partition by performing the following steps. For sx2000-based servers running vPars A.03.xx, the console hardware path must be assigned to the first virtual partition created. Find out the console hardware path: # ioscan -kfnC tty Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description ============================================================= tty 0 0/8/1 asio0 CLAIMED INTERFACE Built-in RS232C /dev/diag/mux0 /dev/mux0 /dev/tty0p0 The console hardware path on this system is 0/8/1. Assign the console hardware path to the first virtual partition being created: # vparcreate -p vPar1 -a io:0/8/1 ...

Choosing the Boot and Lan Paths

Using the full ioscan output, we chose the following boot disk path and note the LAN card path:

Partition Name	keira1	keira2	keira3
Boot Path	1/0/0/3/0.6.0.0.6.0	1/0/4/1/0/4/0.1.0.0.0.0.1	0/0/0/3/0.6.0
LAN	0/0/1/1/0/4/0	1/0/1/1/0/4/0	0/0/2/1/0

Partition Name	winona1	winona2	winona3
Boot Path	0.0.2.0.6.0	0.8.0.0.5.0	1.4.0.0.5.0
LAN	0.0.0.0	1.10.0.0.4.0	0.5.0.0.4.0

Autoboot

Autoboot allows a virtual partition to be booted automatically on a cold boot of the system. By default, autoboot is set to AUTO for all virtual partitions.

Partition Name	keira1	keira2	keira3
Autoboot	AUTO	MANUAL	AUTO

Partition Name	winona1	winona2	winona3
Autoboot	AUTO	AUTO	AUTO

For more information, see the vparmodify(1M) manpage.

	NOTE: When using vparboot -I to install vPars, you need to leave the autoboot attribute set to AUTO during the installation due to the reboots that occur during the installation. After installation is complete, you can set the autoboot attribute to MANUAL using the vparmodify command. For example, after installation is complete, to set the autoboot attribute to MANUAL for the partition winona3: # vparmodify -p winona3 -B manual

Virtual Partition Plan

Combining all parts above, the resultant partition plans are the following:

Partition Name	keira1	keira2	keira3
Assigned CPUs (A.04.xx)	num = 2	num = 1 and 1 from cell 1	num = 1
Unassigned CPUs (A.04.xx)	three CPUs are available
Memory	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB
I/O LBAs	1.0.0 0.0.1	1.0.4 1.0.1	0.0.0 0.0.2
Boot Path	1/0/0/3/0.6.0.0.6.0	1/0/4/1/0/4/0.1.0.0.0.0.1	0/0/0/3/0.6.0
LAN	0/0/1/1/0/4/0	1/0/1/1/0/4/0	0/0/2/1/0
console port (PA-RISC Only)	owned by keira1
Autoboot	AUTO	MANUAL	AUTO

Partition Name	winona1	winona2	winona3
Bound CPUs (A.03.xx)	total = 2 min = 2	total = 2 min = 2 paths = 41,45	total = 1 min = 1
Unbound CPUs (A.03.xx)	three CPUs are available
Memory	1024 MB	1280 MB	1280 MB
I/O LBAs	0.0 0.4	0.8 1.10	0.5 1.4
Boot Path	0.0.2.0.6.0	0.8.0.0.5.0	1.4.0.0.5.0
LAN	0.0.0.0	1.10.0.0.4.0	0.5.0.0.4.0
console port (PA-RISC Only)	owned by winona1
Autoboot	AUTO	AUTO	AUTO