AIX for System Administrators

http://aix4admins.blogspot.mx/2011/06/powervm-power-virtual-machi...

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Basics

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PowerVM (Power Virtual Machine): PowerVM formerly known as Advanced Power Virtualization, it is the virtualization solution for AIX. PowerVM has 3 editions: Express Edition: Hypervisor, DLPAR (3 servers), VIO (1 server), IVM, NPIV Standard Edition: +DLPAR (254 servers), + VIO (2 servers), +HMC, +Multiple Shared Processor Pools, + Shared Storage Pools Enterprise Edition: ++Active Memory Sharing, ++Live Partition Mobility
ABOUT

FS - LVM FS LV Mirror Pool

Intergrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) For a smaller environment, not all functions of an HMC are required, and the deployment of additional HMC hardware may not be suitable, so IBM has developed the IVM, a hardware management solution that performs a subset of the HMC features for a single server, avoiding the need for a dedicated HMC server. IVM manages standalone servers so a second server managed by IVM would have its own instance of the IVM. With the subset of HMC server functionality, IVM provides a solution that enables the administrator to quickly set up a system. The IVM is integrated within the Virtual I/O Server product.

PV VG

GENERAL AIX History Backup Commands

POWER Hypervisor POWER Hypervisor is the foundation of IBM PowerVM. It is a firmware layer sitting between the hosted operating systems and the server hardware, and it is always activated. It delivers functions that enable capabilities: dedicated or micro partitioning, virtual processors, virtual ethernet- scsi- fibre channel- adapters and virtual consoles.

CPU - Processes Crontab - At Date - Time Devices Dump - Core Errpt - Diag - Alog Syslogd

LPAR - Dedicated processors Dedicated processors are whole processors that are assigned to dedicated-processor partitions (LPARs). The minimum processor allocation for an LPAR is one (1) whole processor, and can be as many as the total number of installed processors in the server. Each processor is wholly dedicated to the LPAR. It is not possible to mix shared processors and dedicated processors in the same partition.

Firmware IO - AIO, DIO, CIO Memory - Pag.Space ODM Printing SRC

Micro-Partitioning Micro-Partitioning is the ability to distribute the processing capacity of one or more physical processors among one or more logical partition.

Startup - Shutdown System - Kernel Tunables User - Group User Login

Shared-processor pools In POWER5-based servers, a physical shared-processor pool is a set of physical processors that are not dedicated to any logical partition. Micro-Partitioning technology coupled with the POWER Hypervisor facilitates the sharing of processing units between micropartitions. Multiple Shared-Processor Pools (MSPPs)is a capability supported on POWE6. This capability allows a system administrator to create a set of micro-partitions with the purpose of controlling the processor capacity that the set of micro-partitions can consume from the physical shared-processor pool. The set of micro-partitions form a unit and this can be managed for example how much processor capacity it can use. On all Power Systems supporting Multiple Shared-Processor Pools, a default Shared-Processor Pool is always automatically defined. The default Shared-Processor Pool has a pool identifier of zero (SPP-ID = 0) The default behavior of the system, with only SPP0 defined, is the current behavior of a POWER5 server with only a physical shared-processor pool defined. Micro-partitions are created within SPP0 by default, and processor resources are shared in the same way. If several partitions from different shared processor pools are competing for additional resources, the partitions with the highest weight will be served first. You must therefore define a partitions weight based on the weight of partitions in other shared processor pools.

HACMP - POW ERHA Appl. Monitor Basics Build - Configure Clverify Commands - Cases Config too long DARE - Snapshot Disk Heartbeat Storage - VG, NFS

HMC - ISD ASMI HMC Basics - Console HMC CLI

Storage Pool vs Volume Group The IVM and HMC environments present 2 different interfaces for storage management under different names. Storage Pool interface under IVM is essentially the same as LVM under HMC. (These are used sometimes interchangeably.) So volume group can refer to both volume groups and storage pools, and logical volume can refer to both logical volumes and storage pool backing devices.

HMC/P7 Install ISD Basics RMC

NETW ORK

Active Memory Expansion: Active Memory Expansion is the ability to expand the memory available to an AIX partition beyond the amount of assigned physical memory. Active Memory Expansion compresses memory pages (so it generates CPU load) to provide additional memory capacity for a partition. (It is a Power7 feature.) Starting with POWER7+,memory page compression and decompressionis offloaded to a hardware accelerator.

Basics - Devices, Routing Basics - Protocol, Subnet Basics - Vlan Commands

Active Memory Sharing: Active Memory Sharing (AMS) enables the sharing of a pool of physical memory among partitions on a single Power server (Power 6 or later), helping to increase memory utilization and drive down system costs.

Eth. Chan. Ethernet Adapter IVE - HEA Netcd

Active Memory Deduplication: To optimize memory use, Active Memory Deduplication avoids data duplication in multiple distinct memory spaces. On traditional LPARs, multiple identical data are saved across different positions in main memory. Active Memory Deduplication combines the data in just one physical memory page and frees the other chunks with identical data. The result is multiple logical memory pages pointing to the same physical memory page, thus saving memory space. (It is available on LPARs using Active Memory Sharing.)

NFS RSH - RCP Sendmail SSH - SCP SSH - X11 Telnet - FTP

Acitive Memory Mirroring: It is called sometimes system firmware mirroring. Active Memory Mirroring for the hypervisor is designed to mirror the main memory that is used by the system firmware to ensure greater memory availability . When enabled, an uncorrectable error that results from a failure of main memory used by the system firmware will not cause a system-wide outage. The system maintains two identical copies of the system hypervisor in memory at all times.

NIM Basics Install LPP Source Machines

Labels: VIO

MKSYSB Nimadm SPOT

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AIX for System Administrators

http://aix4admins.blogspot.mx/2011/06/powervm-power-virtual-machi...

21 comments:
Anonymous April 28, 2012 at 8:45 PM Your comment about SPs and VGs, makes it sound as though they're synonymous, and if you're under IVM, just use the SP term. That may have been true when first released, but I believe SPs are being enhanced well beyond VGs now. With capabilities such as shared storage pools, and file-backed-Optical. Or can I do this with a VG and I'm just not aware of it? Reply

PERFORMANCE Basics CPU I/O - Disk, Adapter Memory Network svmon - RAM topas - nmon vmstat - CPU/RAM VMM concepts VIO

aix April 30, 2012 at 12:03 AM It was confusing for me, and after reading some docs, I realized they are very similar. I wrote more on these subjects on this blog: VIO -> VSCSI - Stor. Pool., and VIO -> VSCSI (I would suggest read this last one (http://aix4admins.blogspot.com/2011/06/virtual-scsi-virtualscsi-is-based-on.html), from the middle, where I create the same vg with mkvg and mksp command.) I think you made a good point about shared storage pools, and that is possibly a difference. However a Virtual Media Repository (with file-backed-Optical) can be created on a normal vg as well: padmin@bb-vios2:/home/padmin # lsvg rootvg padmin@bb-vios2:/home/padmin # lssp Pool Size(mb) Free(mb) Alloc Size(mb) BDs Type rootvg 279552 195584 256 0 LVPOOL padmin@bb-vios2:/home/padmin # mkvg -vg bbvg hdiskpower0 bbvg padmin@bb-vios2:/home/padmin # lssp <--the created bbvg is shown as a storage pool as well Pool Size(mb) Free(mb) Alloc Size(mb) BDs Type rootvg 279552 195584 256 0 LVPOOL bbvg 25888 25888 16 0 LVPOOL padmin@bb-vios2:/home/padmin # mkrep -sp bbvg -size 4G Virtual Media Repository Created Repository created within "VMLibrary" logical volume padmin@atcgvirp2-vios2:/home/padmin # lsrep <--the pool is created on a normal vg Size(mb) Free(mb) Parent Pool Parent Size Parent Free 4079 4079 bbvg 25888 21792 STORAGE Adapter Basics - SAN Basics - Settings EMC Hitachi HP EVA - SSA MPIO SDD

UPDATE - INSTALL Basics Commands IFIX

VIO Basics Commands AME - AMS CDROM - DVDROM LPM NIB - LA NPIV

To be honest, I do not really see why IBM created these this way...if you have any other good idea, you can enlighten me :) Reply

SEA Shared Storage Pool VIOS update/upgrade Virt. Eth. Ad.

Anonymous October 2, 2012 at 10:03 AM Hi,

Virt. Proc.-Ent. Cap. VSCSI VSCSI - Stor. Pool

If Uncapped mode is enabled, whether the processor units has been taken upto desired value or beyond the desired value in the shared processor pool. Please clarify. +EXTRAS Regards, Siva Reply Replies aix October 2, 2012 at 9:08 PM Hi, ksh It can take beyond the desired value in case of uncapped mode. (That is the main difference between capped and uncapped mode.) locale multibos perl Siva October 3, 2012 at 5:48 AM Hi, There is maximum limit of acquiring processor in the shared free processor pool. profiles rbac Rsh samba screen script aix October 3, 2012 at 8:26 AM Yes, that is true. "The number of Virtual Processors can not be extended over 10X of the Entitled Capacaty. (If EC=0,5 then the maximum number of Virtual Processor can not be over 5.) " In this case it can use up to maximum 5 Physical CPU in uncapped mode. sudo vi +others alt_disk awk - sed bash citrix java kdb

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Siva October 2, 2012 at 1:55 PM Hi, Does we change the desired value (memory) online without any downtime.? Regards, Siva Reply Replies aix October 2, 2012 at 9:13 PM Hi, yes it can be done online as a DLPAR operation Some notes: - it can't be larger than maximum memory - should be changed in profile as well, so next reboot will take this new amount of memory

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Siva October 3, 2012 at 1:07 PM Hi, Sorry, had wrongly asked question. Whether we can increase the maximum value online ? Reply Replies aix October 3, 2012 at 10:58 PM Hi, maximum value can't be increased online. LPAR profile must be changed and reboot is needed (new maximum value must be loaded from profile)

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AIX for System Administrators

http://aix4admins.blogspot.mx/2011/06/powervm-power-virtual-machi...

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Purusothaman Kali December 2, 2012 at 9:17 AM Hi , I have a scenario here. My AIX Frame is totally enabled with 8 CPUs. Partition A assigned with EC=4 and partition B with EC=4 and both are uncapped. Incase if Partition A need one more cpu which is free in partition B , is possible to be acquired by partion A ? and if it possible to acquire one more CPU by Partition A , when it required by partition B , will Partition B to take it back again ? as it is Entitled for Partition B Reply Replies aix December 2, 2012 at 7:43 PM Hi, short answer is yes, when you have uncapped partitions, they can exceed the entitled capacity when resources are available. But they can take it back its own processing capacity form other LPARs when they need it. There are 2 other things what you should know as well: 1. uncapped weight: Its a value, what you set at LPAR creation, and if it is higher, then LPAR will receive more resources in uncapped mode. (compare to other LPARs which uncapped weight value is lower.) 2. virtual processors: If you set, in your scenario, 4 virtual processors for both LPARs (as desired value), they will not exceed 4 processing unit. This is because 1 virtual processor represents 1 CPU. So, if you want that an LPAR use more CPU if needed in uncapped mode, then you should set virtual processor higher then 4. (For example 5,6,7 or 8 if you would like that 1 LPAR could use all the resources if needed.)

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Anonymous February 19, 2013 at 3:28 AM hi...since am starting my career as an aix system admin,could you pls say me the basic concepts of vio and most used commands in vio concepts, in troubleshooting part..?? thanx in advance. Reply Replies aix February 19, 2013 at 10:41 AM Hi, on this link you can find more info about this topic: http://aix4admins.blogspot.hu/2011/06/vios-service-package-definitionsfix.html

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Anonymous March 27, 2013 at 2:51 PM Hi .. I have system with Entitled Capacity : 0.50 Online Virtual CPUs : 2 Maximum Virtual CPUs : 16 Minimum Virtual CPUs : 1 could you please suggest what does Entitled Capacity mean Reply Replies aix March 28, 2013 at 9:10 AM Hi, Processing Capacity, Processing Units and Entitled Capacity are basically the same thing. There is some description above, but Entitled Capacity: 0.50 means 50% of the CPU is assigned to that LPAR (which will be distributed on 2 Virtual CPUs in your case).

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Anonymous April 2, 2013 at 3:01 PM Hi..can i change the uncapped mode to capped and vice versa with dlpar (i.e. with out rebooting partition). hoping you will answer, Thank you ..any way

Reply Replies aix April 2, 2013 at 4:25 PM Hi, changing capped-uncapped can be done only in the LPAR profile and after that profile activation is needed. So it cannot be changed online with DLPAR.

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Anonymous April 23, 2013 at 5:56 AM Hi Admin, Its very good blog and great content , Admin could you update about WPAR . Thanks AR Reply Replies aix April 23, 2013 at 8:27 AM I'll try my best...

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Anonymous April 23, 2013 at 4:02 PM Thanks admin for yor reply,AR Reply

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AIX for System Administrators

http://aix4admins.blogspot.mx/2011/06/powervm-power-virtual-machi...

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