Creating a logical partition using HMC console

Partition profiles are new concept of eServer i5 LPAR. If you are new to LPAR or from previous version of LPAR on Power4 version of the eServer iSeries (as with OS/400 V5R2 and previous versions), you will need to be familiar with this new concept. Refer to Logical

Partitions on IBM PowerPC® A guide to working with LPAR on Power5 technology,

SG24-8000.

HMC has a wizard for both partition and partition profile creation. The following steps describe how to use this wizard.

1. On your HMC in Navigation Area select Server and Partition → Server Management. Then do a right click over Partitions → Create → Logical Partition as illustrated in Figure 3-27.

Note: To create a partition or system profile you must have privileges of super administrator or operator in the HMC.

Figure 3-27 Creating a new Partition

2. The Partition wizard appears. Fill the information about ID and partition name. Then select the environment of partition that you want to create. We choose AIX or Linux as

illustrated in Figure 3-28. Click Next to continue.

Figure 3-28 Creating a new Environment

3. Next screen gives you an option for the partition to be a part of a group of partitions that can be managed by a workload application. We choose No as illustrated in Figure 3-29. Click Next to continue.

Figure 3-29 Creating a new Partition - Workload Management Groups

4. Next step is creating a profile. As explained in “Partition profile” on page 9, this object specifies the characteristics of the partition such as the memory, processors, I/O devices and slots.

As illustrated in Figure 3-30, give the name of the profile. In our example, we give the profile name of “MariaT”. Click Next to continue.

Note: Do not check Use all resources in the system option. If you check it, the partition which is associated with this profile will try to get all the physical resources in the system when the partition profile is activated. If a partition owns all of the physical resources then there can only be one active partition on the system.

Figure 3-30 Creating a new Partition - Logical Partition Profile

5. Next, we specify the memory size that the partition profile will manage as illustrated in Figure 3-31. Use this page to specify the memory management information for this partition profile. You must specify three memory levels:

– The minimum memory is the minimum amount of memory that the logical partition must have to run. If the system cannot allocate this much of memory, the activation of this partition will fail.

– The desired memory is the amount of memory that you want the logical partition to have when you activate the logical partition.

– The maximum memory is the maximum amount of memory that the logical partition is allowed to have when you dynamically move memory.

When the partition is activated an attempt will be made to allocate the "desired" amount of memory defined for the partition-profile -- if the amount of desired memory is not available then an additional check will be made to see if the amount of unallocated memory left on the Managed System is more then or equal to the "minimum" amount of memory defined for the partition profile. If the amount of memory is equal to or greater then the minimum defined memory then it will be allocated to the partition; otherwise the partition will fail to activate.

Figure 3-31 Creating a new Partition - Memory

In our example the minimum quantity of memory that the partition can run is 512 MB, the desirable amount is 1 GB and the maximum that can allocate is 5 GB. Click Next to continue.

6. Next step is to choose for Shared or Dedicated processors. Dedicated means you are not sharing the processor with other partitions. With Shared option, you can utilize sub processor feature where each partition can run with 0.1 processing unit at minimum. While the minimum processor (for shared) is .10; the definition can be in the hudredths of processor units (e.g. 0.15). This is referred as micro-partitioning. In our example we choose the Shared option as illustrated in Figure 3-32.

Restriction: Dynamic memory movement is not available as of Linux kernel 2.6 and 2.4. Therefore, this feature is not available for Linux on i5 either. However, the memory will be recognized by Linux next time it is re-started

Figure 3-32 Creating a new Partition - Processor

7. For Shared processor option, we choose the minimum, maximum and desired processing units of the partition.

When the partition is activated an attempt will be made to allocate the "desired" amount of processors defined for the partition-profile -- if the amount of desired processors is not available then an additional check will be made to see if the amount of unallocated processors left on the Managed System is more then or equal to the "minimum" amount of processors defined for the partition profile. If the amount of processors is equal to or greater then the minimum defined processors then it will be allocated to the partition; otherwise the partition will fail to activate.

As illustrated in Figure 3-33, we define 0.1 unit of a processor to be our minimum

processing units, 1 processor power desired, and 1.5 as maximum processing units. Click on Advanced button.

Figure 3-33 Creating a new Partition - Processing Units

8. A screen as illustrated in Figure 3-34 is shown. We define two items in this step: Sharing modes of processing units and the virtual processor usage. For further information on sharing modes of processing units, refer to “Capped/uncapped logical partitions” on page 12. For further information on the virtual processor, refer to “Virtual processors” on page 11.

Figure 3-34 Creating a new Partition - Advanced Processing Settings

Click OK and the Next button in the processing settings windows.

9. Create Logical Partition Profile - I/O window as illustrated in Figure 3-35 appears. We are creating a Linux partition with everything virtual. Therefore, we do not need to add any I/O resource. Click Next to continue.

Figure 3-35 Creating a new Partition - I/O

10.Next screen as illustrated in Figure 3-36 is to add I/O pools. In our example, we do not have I/O Pools so click Next to continue.

Note: If you want to see how to attach Hardware Resources for native I/O, go to

Figure 3-36 Creating a new Partition - I/O Pools

11.Then the Virtual I/O Adapters window appears. Select Yes as illustrated in Figure 3-37. Click Next button to continue.

Figure 3-37 Creating a new Partition - Virtual I/O

12.Next screen is to define virtual adapters on the screen as illustrated in Figure 3-38. First you define the total number of virtual adapter slots for this partition. Then as illustrated at the bottom of the screen, we can create various adapters such as ethernet, Serial, or SCSI adapters.

Attention: Ensure that your i5/OS have PTF MF33433 loaded. If not, you cannot use Virtual devices.

Number of slots can be greater then the number of virtual adapters that will be defined for the partition. Having additional (unused) slots allows for additional virtual devices to be added to the partition (via DLPAR) without the need to restart the partition.

In our example we create one SCSI adapter for virtual disk storage, one ethernet adapter for virtual ethernet, and two serial adapters for console. We create a SCSI adapter and an ethernet adapter in a Linux partition and a Serial adapter on an i5/OS partition.

Two server serial adapters (slot 0 and slot 1) are automatically allocated to each Logical Partition. Server serial adapter in slot 1 is used for HMC Console access; while the Server Serial adapter in slot 0 is available for other defined connections (such as virtual console through port 2301 of the hosting i5/OS partition)

With this in mind click on SCSI adapter and click on Create button.

Figure 3-38 Creating a new Partition - Adding Virtual I/O - SCSI adapter

13.Then Figure 3-39 Virtual SCSI Adapter Properties appears.

Note: After filling the fields as described in the sub steps, do

not

press OK button yet. We need to configure matching server partition first, then come back to this screen to finally press OK button.

Figure 3-39 Creating a new Partition - Virtual SCSI Client Properties

a. Specify the slot number to use for this virtual SCSI adapter. The slot number is used to identify the virtual adapter within the logical partition. The combination of the slot number and the logical partition ID uniquely identify this slot within the managed system. as illustrated in the screen, the first available slot number is 2 since 0 and 1 are taken by default serial adapters.

b. This partition will be served by the server partition for disk storage space. Therefore, we select Client for adapter type.

c. The name of the partition that offers the service is i5OS whose partition ID is 4. d. The remote partition virtual slot number is the slot number where the Server type

virtual adapter resides. In our example is the slot number 5 in partition i5OS with partition ID of 4.

14.At this point, we need to create a matching SCSI adapter on the server partition of i5OS to represent as slot number 5 in partition 4. This SCSI adapter will be type

server

. To do this return to the HMC main menu (leave the screen as illustrated in Figure 3-39 alone). Choose Server and Partition → Server Management then expand on the server partition, the partition named i5OS in our example. Then right click on its profile, FredyC, and click on Properties as illustrated in Figure 3-40.

Note: Here we assume slot number 5 is available in partition i5OS but this might not be true. If that’s the case, you’ll need to check i5OS partition properties first to see which slot number is available. Refer to step 14 to find out available slot number. IBM support suggests that when defining SCSI client-server pairs that different slot numbers should be used for the client partition and the server partition. The use of different slot numbers, while not technically required, facilitates better understanding during support calls.

b

a

c d

Figure 3-40 Creating a new Partition: Configuring profile server virtual SCSI

15.Select the Virtual I/O tab as illustrated in Figure 3-41. At the bottom of the screen, click on SCSI radio button, then click on Create button.

Attention: Do not close the other window as illustrated in Figure 3-39. The partition wizard still running!

Figure 3-41 Creating a new Partition: Configuring server Virtual I/O

16.A screen as illustrated in Figure 3-42 appears. We enter three items on this screen. First, the slot number. Select the slot number that you define as Remote partition virtual slot number as illustrated in Figure 3-39, slot number 5 in our example.

Second, Adapter type should be Server.

Lastly, for Connection Information, select the option Any remote partition and slot can connect. Click OK to complete the configuration on the server partition side.

Figure 3-42 Creating a new Partition - Virtual I/O Server Properties

We need further explanation for the last input item of Connection Information, that is related to power control.

If you are going to start the Linux server from HMC panel, this choice does not matter. But if you want to start it from the i5/OS side, you need to pick Only selected remote

partition and slot can connect option. In addition to this option, we need the following conditions to be met:

• We need to specify that Linux partition to be power controlled by a specific i5/OS partition as illustrated in Figure 3-47 on page 81 and

• We need to specify Power control *YES in NWSD as illustrated in Figure 3-59 on page 89 then

• We can start the Linux partition, which we are creating now, from i5/OS side by varying on NWSD.

In this step, for now, we have chosen Any remote partition and slot can connect option because there is no Linux partition created yet (we are in the middle of that process). Later, we need to come back to this screen and pick this Linux partition instead of Any.

Return to the Virtual SCSI Adapter Properties of your Linux partition as illustrated in Figure 3-43. Now we can click OK to complete client side virtual SCSI adapter creation.

Note: For other power control options discussion, refer to Section 2.2.1, “Power control” on page 36.

Figure 3-43 Creating a new partition: Client side virtual SCSI adapter

17.As illustrated in Figure 3-44, the Client SCSI adapter is now created with slot number 2. Under Required column, check this newly created adapter as required.

Next task is to create an adapter for virtual ethernet. For this, at the bottom of the screen, select ethernet radio button, then click on Create.

Figure 3-44 Creating a new Partition - Adding Virtual I/O - ethernet adapter

Figure 3-45 Creating a new Partition - Virtual ethernet Properties

a. Specify the slot number to use for this virtual ethernet adapter. The slot number is used to identify the virtual adapter within the logical partition. The combination of the slot number and the logical partition ID uniquely identify this slot within the managed system. as illustrated in the screen, the first available slot number is 3 since 0, 1, and 2 are already taken.

b. Specify the ID number for the virtual Local Area Network (LAN) to which you want to connect this virtual ethernet adapter. This virtual LAN ID number can be any whole number from 1 to 4094.

c. A trunk adapter is an ethernet adapter that links its LAN to an external network. This option enables that the virtual ethernet adapter can connect to other virtual networks or LAN IDs at the same time.

19.Click OK to add the virtual ethernet adapter to your Logical partition. Now as illustrated in Figure 3-46, the virtual ethernet device appears. Check this device as required. Then click on next button to continue the wizard.

Important: To enable Virtual communications between the server and the client partitions you must have at least one virtual ethernet in the client partition using the same Port Virtual LAN ID as in the server partition.

a b c

Figure 3-46 Creating a new partition - Adding virtual I/O

20.In Figure 3-47 you can select which logical partition have the authority to power on or power down the logical partition that you are creating. In other words, if you select this option you can power on the Linux partition from the Network Server Description (NWSD). By defining the "Power Controlling Partition" as the hosting i5/OS partition, a vary off of the Network Server in i5/OS will cause a shutdown signal to be sent to the Hypervisor to cause the partition to shutdown. Likewise, the shutdown of the partition will cause a shutdown signal to be sent to the Linux operating system. This handshaking between i5/OS, hypervisor, and Linux allows for clean startup and shutdown of Linux (and associated partition) from a centralized location (i5/OS) and provides for centralized management of all of the servers within the managed system.

Note: You need to increase the “Number of virtual adapter slots” if you wish to use more than 10 virtual adapters.

Figure 3-47 Creating a new Partition - Power Controlling Partitions

21.After clicking on Next, you can select optional settings for the partition profile as described in Figure 3-48.

Figure 3-48 Creating a new Partition - Optional Settings

a. This option enables to the Service Focal Point to monitoring the connection between the Hardware Management Console and the logical partition.

b. For hosted partitions, this option should be left unslected on the partition. To achieve automatic startup of the partition, the NWSD in the hosting partition should be set to 'Start at IPL *YES'.

c. Boot mode Normal: The logical partition boots as normal mode.

d. Boot mode SMS: The logical partition boots to the System Management Services (SMS) mode.

e. Boot mode DIAG_DEFAULT: The logical partition boots in default diagnosis mode. f. Boot mode DIAG_STORED: The logical partition boots using the service boot list

saved in NVRAM. This option is useful to run online diagnostics

Note: When we are done with Linux partition creation, next step is registering this newly created partition to System Processor (SP). To do that, we will activate the partition. Registration is accomplished by powering on the partition. We’re activating Linux partition now just to register with SP, note that we still need to complete configuration of Linux partition to begin Linux installation on newly created partition.

a b c d e f g

g. Boot mode OPEN_FIRMWARE: The logical partition boots to open firmware prompt. This options is useful to obtain aditional debug information.

22.Finally the Profile summary is displayed. Click finish to accept the creation of the partition profile. The new partition appears in your system management console as illustrated in Figure 3-49.

Figure 3-49 Server Management - Current Partitions

23.Activate the partition by right clicking on it and select Activate. On the screen as illustrated in Figure 3-50, be sure to check on Open a terminal window or console session, so that we can access SMS through HMC terminal window.

24.SMS boot screen shows as illustrated in Figure 3-51. This tells us that partition registration on SP is done. We get the screen of Figure 3-51 here because we selected Open a terminal window or console session in step 23.

Figure 3-51 SMS boot screen

25.Back on HMC main menu, right click on the partition and select Shut Down Partition to power it off as illustrated in Figure 3-52.

Figure 3-52 Shutting down a partition

Select Immediate and click on OK. This completes the creation of a Linux partition.

Virtual console setup

Now we need to set up i5/OS virtual console for the Linux partition. To do this we have to create a new virtual serial client connection on the i5/OS side. Start configuring i5/OS partition as illustrated in Figure 3-40 on page 75. Also select the tag Virtual I/O, then choose

to create a new Serial adapter and push the create button. Figure 3-53 appears on the screen.

Figure 3-53 Creating a new Partition - Virtual Adapter Client Properties

a. The Slot number is the virtual position that the Virtual device will have in this case the position number 6.

b. In this example the adapter type is client because the Linux Server is the server that uses the serial as a console connection. We do not need to create serial client serial as it is automatically created as illustrated in Figure 3-38 on page 73.

c. The partition that offers the service is in this case is Linux on i5 and is identified with the partition id number 3.

d. The remote partition virtual slot number is the slot number where the virtual device type server resides. In our example is the slot number 0.

In document Linux on IBM Eserver i5 (Page 77-99)