eServer new partition for AIX

[notb]

All,

I've been thrown at this IBM eServer (P5) and could use a little help. I have one partition with AIX 5.3 up and running and my understanding is that I should be able to get another partition with another instance of the OS on it. We're using this for functional testing, not load, so the more instances the better. But I'm having trouble setting up the 2nd partition.

I have shutdown the original partition (P1), created a new partition (P2) with a profile that uses all resources, so as to have access to the DVD, and started P2 with the AIX disk in the reader. I do get to the install prompt but it only suggests hdisk1 as a destination and I know that's already used by P1 and I sure don't want to blow away my working install.

I know there are two 70G disks in that machine, but I don't know how they are setup (e.g. are they mirrored? striped?) or how to find out. I tried to create a new logical volume on hdisk0, but that presented 2 problems:
1) The only way I found was to go the IP address of my AIX install on P1 as it appears on the HMC. Only then can I access "devices". That seems strange to me because it presumes you already have the OS before you can assign the disk space to install the OS!?
2) Even then, the "Wizard" does not create a setup that resembles what I have on hdisk1. Instead of having all sorts of hd1,2,3, it only creates a single "volume"/"mount point". Also, the file system is jfs instead of jfs2. I tried using the manual way instead of the wizard, but I don't understand most of the options.

Basically I'm looking for pointers. RTFM remarks accompanied by a chapter number or something like that are perfectly fine. Do not hesitate to ask for clarifications if the above rambling does not make sense. I'm new to this and may not be using the proper terminology.

Thanks

 

[p5wizard]

If you have only 2 disks in your p5, chances are they are in the same disk bay, serviced by the same SCSI adapter, so that kind of limits your partitioning capabilities... unless you have Advanced Power Virtualization capapilities (VIOS, IVM, virtual SCSI, shared ethernet, shared processor, ...)

Start your original partition, and run this command:

lscfg | grep hdisk

post the output here and I'll have a look at where the disks are.

You cannot have two partitions active at the same time with both partitions 'owning' all the resources of the server. Even by flip-flopping between partitions, one active and one dormant, you probably want to isolate the disks/adapters from one partition to the other, making sure you don't wipe out one system by installing another one over it...


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[notb]

wizard,

Here's the lscfg output:
+ hdisk0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L5-L0 16 Bit LVD SCSI Disk Drive (73400 MB)
+ hdisk1 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L8-L0 16 Bit LVD SCSI Disk Drive (73400 MB)

If I understand correctly, just like the DVD player can only belong to one partition at a time, the same is true for disk drives (or is it the adapters?)

There are 4 bays in the front of our eServer. Would moving a disk make any difference?

 

[p5wizard]

depends if the 4 drive bays are 2x2 bays (split backplane) or 1x4bays

location codes suggests 1x4 bays
U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L5-L0 occupied hdisk0
U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L6-L0 free
U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L7-L0 free
U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L8-L0 occupied hdisk1
all serviced by the same adapter

so no, moving a disk wouldn't help.

post a full lscfg from the full-server partition please?

HTH,

p5wizard

 

[DukeSSD]

run
lspv
on the original lpar to see if both disks are used by the original lpar, if both are listed, they are both used by the original lpar, probably mirrored. if they both show rootvg then run
lsvg -l rootvg
if all the pv column is 2's and the pp's are all at least 2, it is mirrored.

if one shows none it is free for you to use
if it shows another name it is probably a data volume group for the first lpar and you’ll have a problem freeing it up for use on a second lpar

if they are mirrored and you don't need the original lpar to have the protection of mirroring you could reduce the rootvg and remove a disk, run
smitty lvm
select "volume groups", select "Unmirror a Volume Group" type "rootvg" and hit the go button.

I daren't try it on my live systems but if it asks for the disk to remove pick hsidk1.

check the boot list is ok - only shows hdisk0 with:
bootlist -o -m normal

If it doesn't just show hdiks0 run
bootlist -m normal hdisk0
to set the normal boot list to hdisk0 only

and then run
bosboot -ad hdisk0
to sort out the boot loader on the remaining hdisk0

I'm with p5wizard, both disks are on the same scsi controller/adapter T10 so you cannot boot more than one lpar at a time until you have another scsi adapter with a disk attached.

with lpar you share at the adapter / pci slot level so you'll need two scsi adapters for two lpars to be active at the same time.

if one lpar active at a time is good enough for you then you can create two lpars, one using each disk but you'll need to establish if the original lpar is using both disks first and if so free up one of them to install AIX on for the second lpar.

make a note of the location of the disk used by the original lpar so you can be sure of selecting the other disk to install the new lpar on to.

the dvd, adapters and disks can only belong to one ACTIVE lpar at a time.

it seems a bit odd that your full system partition install on p2 only gives the option to install to hdisk1 so checkout what is going on with the disks in the p1 lpar with the above commands and post the results if you are unsure.

 

[notb]

Sorry for the delay. I chose not to work this weekend. Here's the full output of 'lscfg' as requested:

+ sys0 System Object
+ sysplanar0 System Planar
* vio0 Virtual I/O Bus
* vsa0 U9111.520.6508F0B-V2-C0 LPAR Virtual Serial Adapter
* vty0 U9111.520.6508F0B-V2-C0-L0 Asynchronous Terminal
* pci1 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
* pci12 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
* pci10 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
* pci8 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
* ide0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T12 ATA/IDE Controller Device
+ cd0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P4-D2 IDE DVD-ROM Drive
* pci9 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
+ sisscsia0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI-X Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI Adapter
+ scsi0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10 PCI-X Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI Adapter bus
+ hdisk0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L5-L0 16 Bit LVD SCSI Disk Drive (73400 MB)
+ hdisk1 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L8-L0 16 Bit LVD SCSI Disk Drive (73400 MB)
+ ses0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T10-L15-L0 SCSI Enclosure Services Device
+ scsi1 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T11 PCI-X Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI Adapter bus
* pci11 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
* pci0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
* pci4 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
* pci5 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
* pci6 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-C2 PCI Bus
+ lai0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-C2-T1 GXT135P Graphics Adapter
* pci2 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
+ usbhc0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 USB Host Controller (33103500)
+ usbhc1 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 USB Host Controller (33103500)
* pci3 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
+ ent0 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T5 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter (14108902)
+ ent1 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1-T6 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter (14108902)
* pci7 U787A.001.DPM2587-P1 PCI Bus
+ L2cache0 L2 Cache
+ mem0 Memory
+ proc0 Processor
+ proc2 Processor

 

[notb]

Duke,

Thanks for the very informative post. Based on the following output, am I to understand my 2 disks are not mirrored?

bash-3.00# lspv
hdisk0 00c08f0baed0eefe vg00 active
hdisk1 00c08f0bc0cc58ac rootvg active
bash-3.00# lsvg -l rootvg
rootvg:
LV NAME TYPE LPs PPs PVs LV STATE MOUNT POINT
hd5 boot 1 1 1 closed/syncd N/A
hd6 paging 4 4 1 open/syncd N/A
hd8 jfs2log 1 1 1 open/syncd N/A
hd4 jfs2 4 4 1 open/syncd /
hd2 jfs2 34 34 1 open/syncd /usr
hd9var jfs2 8 8 1 open/syncd /var
hd3 jfs2 16 16 1 open/syncd /tmp
hd1 jfs2 48 48 1 open/syncd /home
hd10opt jfs2 16 16 1 open/syncd /opt
loglv00 jfslog 1 1 1 open/syncd N/A
lv00 jfs 1 1 1 open/syncd /var/adm/csd

Though at the end of the day, perhaps it does not matter since my goal was really to have 2 or more concurrently active partitions. I need to spend quality time with the man pages and the various commands (lspv, lsvg, bootlist, bosboot, etc) to better understand what I'm looking at. Ditto, I need to confirm that I have only a single scsi controller and investigate the possibility to get another one.

I'm sure the eServer virtualization feature is geared towards high performance, but it certainly isn't quite as easy to use as VmWare.

 

[DukeSSD]

From the above, they are not mirrored.
Hdisk1 is used by rootvg - this is where AIX lives.
Hdisk0 is used by a volume group called vg00

So you have no spare disks.

You could check what is in vg00 and reinstall it in rootvg, then free up vg00 for use by another partition.

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/index.jsp

Is where the documentation for pseries machines lives.

Start with a search for lpar or partitioning.

 

[p5wizard]

There are two SCSI adapters in your server, but there's only one SCSI enclosure, so no matter where you put the disks, they'll allways be dependent of the adapter scsi0 (unless you have an external disk drawer that you can connect to scsi1 or maybe there's a feature that you can install to split your SCSI enclosure 1x4 into two enclosures 2x2). Ask IBM or your business partner about that.

What model is your server?


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[DukeSSD]

output of
lsconf
please notb, this will tell us what hardware and firmware, amongst other things, we are dealing with here.

from your location codes it is probably a 520 so you'll only need another ses (disk enclosure backplane - ses = scsi enclosure services) to allow you to have disks on both adapters so you can run two lpars at the same time.

Then you can either remove the vg00 disk, hdisk0, from lpar1 and use it for lpar 2 or you may want to buy some more disks for the new lpar and then you can leave the current lpar as it is.

lscfg shows two ethernet adapters and two processors so you should then have all you need for the two lpars to be active at the same time.

if your hmc code is up to date you could run dlpar - dynamic lpar, then you can move things like the CD-ROM between the lpars on the fly.

 

[notb]

Sorry for leaving you hanging. Giant cluster here at work, but that's no excuse. I have to remind myself that by posting here, you are not only helping me, but also those that will later search this forum's archive.

Duke, you were right on the money regarding the model being a 520. Find the output to lsconf below. Also, thanks to both of you for parsing this information out. Knowing how to call things by their right name is half the battle and makes reading the documentation possible.

I'll check with our partner regarding the possibility to go 1x4 to 2x2. I'll also price out a new 'ses' and see where that leads. Who knows, there may be money left in the budget.

For completeness' sake, I can tell you the VG vg00 is not used. I created it while poking around, trying to install AIX on hdisk0. So I know I have a free disk. Though I like the suggestion of getting others for the new lpar.

System Model: IBM,9111-520
Machine Serial Number: 6508F0B
Processor Type: PowerPC_POWER5
Number Of Processors: 2
Processor Clock Speed: 1654 MHz
CPU Type: 64-bit
Kernel Type: 64-bit
LPAR Info: mylpar1
Memory Size: 3792 MB
Good Memory Size: 3792 MB
Platform Firmware level: Not Available
Firmware Version: IBM,SF235_160
Console Login: enable
Auto Restart: true
Full Core: false

Network Information
Host Name: ###
IP Address: ###
Sub Netmask: ###
Gateway: ###
Name Server:
Domain Name:

Paging Space Information
Total Paging Space: 512MB
Percent Used: 1%

Volume Groups Information
==============================================================================
rootvg:
PV_NAME PV STATE TOTAL PPs FREE PPs FREE DISTRIBUTION
hdisk1 active 546 412 109..85..00..109..10 9
==============================================================================

vg00:
PV_NAME PV STATE TOTAL PPs FREE PPs FREE DISTRIBUTION
hdisk0 active 1092 886 219..12..218..218..2 19
==============================================================================

INSTALLED RESOURCE LIST
<removed because redundant w/ previous post>

 

[mrn]

Grab a copy of the following

IBM System planning tool
LPAR Validation Tool LVT (It's been discontinued from 1st Oct 2006) both tools will help you understand what you'll need to add additional partitions.

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/support/tools/systemplanningtool/

Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."