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The goal of this configuration step is to tell CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP what host device to use as the virtual system console. The following options are available:

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physical_serial_line

Mapping to host "\\.\COM<n>" physical serial line.

virtual_serial_line

Mapping to an IP port of CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP host.

Using this mapping it is possible to connect to CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP console and disconnect from it at any time.It is also possible to start up some chosen application to connect to the CHARON console IP port.

Example:

In the example above, CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP use the IP port "10003" for the VAX/PDP11 console and starts the "Putty" terminal emulator (included in each CHARON distributive) with the "OPA0" saved session directing it to connect to the IP port "10003".

 If the terminal emulator is closed, it is always possible to reopen it with the "Show Console" command from the CHARON system tray icon:

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The default setting is "load virtual_serial_line/chserial OPA0 port=10003 application="putty.exe -load OPA0".

Note that the VAX 4000 and MicroVAX 3100 models have a 4-line QUART adapter onboard, so their configuration for the console line looks a bit different:

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The first line ("load RQDX3 DUA") loads disk controller RQDX3 with name DUA, followed by 6 lines showing different ways of mapping to the host resources:

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• physical disk
  • "<file-name>.vdisk"
    Mapping to the file representing a physical disk of the VAX/PDP11 system (disk image). 
    These files can be created from scratch with "MkDisk" utility. Data and OS disks backups are transferred from the original system via tapes or network and restored into these container files. 
    Mapping may also include the full path (recommended), for example: "C:\My disks\my_boot_disk.vdisk"

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• • "\\.\PhysicalDriveN"
    Mapping to physical disk. Be careful not to destroy all the information from the disk dedicated to CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP by mistake!These disks must not be formatted by the host OS.
  • "\\.\PhysicalDrive(DevID =XXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX)"

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• • 
    Mapping to physical disk by its WWID. Be careful not to destroy all the information from the disk dedicated to CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP by mistake!These disks must not be formatted by the host OS.
    

    DevID addresses the target physical disk by its WWID (hexadecimal 128-bit identifier assigned to the disk drive by its manufacturer/originator).

    Example:

    Div class small set DUA container[2]="\\.\PhysicalDrive(DevID=6008-05F3-0005-2950-BF8E-0B86-A0C7-0001)"

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• iSCSI disks

  • "\\.\PhysicalDrive(iScsiTarget = <iSCSI target>, LUN = <LUN number>)"

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    iScsiTarget addresses the disk by its iSCSI target name.

    LUN specifies LUN on connected iSCSI disk. 

    Example:

    Div class small set DUA container[3]="\\.\PhysicalDrive(iScsiTarget=iqn.2008-04:iscsi.charon-target-test1, LUN=1)"

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• CDROM drive
  • "\\.\CdRomN"

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• ISO file (for reading distribution CD-ROM image)
  • "<file-name>.iso"
    Mapping may also include the full path (recommended), for example: "C:\My disks\vms_distributive.iso"
    

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• • .

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• Floppy drive

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• • "\\.\

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• • A:"

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• Other type of drive

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• (for example magneto-optical drive)
  • "\\.\<N>:"
    

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Numbers in the square brackets represent unit numbers associated with each container of the MSCP controller. For example, the 3rd "set DUA" line of the configuration sample above creates disk "DUA2". The maximum unit number allowed is 9999, significantly more than the original hardware provided.

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Follow this link for details of (T)MSCP controllers configuration.

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SCSI controller NCR53C94

The VAX 4000 and MicroVAX 3100 have an NCR53C94 SCSI controller onboard for support of different types of SCSI devices including disks and tapes. Optionally a second controller can be added.

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Note that NCR53C94 SCSI controller mapping to system resources is done via specific auxiliary objects:

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virtual_scsi_disk

Mapping to a file representing VAX/PDP11 disk (disk image) on the host physical disk:

• "<file-name>.vdisk"
  These files can be created from scratch with "MkDisk" utility. Data and OS disk backups are transferred from the original system via tapes or network and restored into these container files. Mapping may also include the full path (recommended), for example: "C:\My disks\my_boot_disk.vdisk"

physical_scsi_device

Mapping to a host SCSI device:

• "\\.\Tape<N>" - mapping to a SCSI tape drive known to Windows

• "\\.\ScsiN:X:Y:Z" - name of some SCSI device unknown to Windows for direct mapping, for example, a SCSI disk or tape reader. The values of N, X, Y and Z can be collected using special utility "Host Device Check" included in the CHARON distributive - or manually by investigation of the devices connected to CHARON host in the "Device Manager" applet.

virtual_scsi_cdrom

Mapping to a host CD-ROM (not only SCSI) or to ISO image:

• "\\.\CdRom<N>" - name of host CD-ROM drive
• "<file-name>.iso" - name of ISO image. It may contain the full path, for example: "C:\My disks\vms_distributive.iso"

virtual_scsi_tape

Mapping to a file representing tape (tape image). It may contain a path, for example: "C:\My tapes\backup.vtape"

Let's look at the syntax of the mapping objects. All of them have several important parameters:

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Once the controller is loaded it can be mapped to system resources (lines 6-11). The following options are available:

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physical_serial_line

Mapping to host "\\.\COM<N>" serial line

virtual_serial_line

Mapping to an IP port of CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP.
This mapping makes it possible to connect to and disconnect from the CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP serial line at any time.It is also possible to start up some chosen application to connect to the CHARON serial line IP port.

Example:

In the example above, CHARON-VAX / CHARON-PDP uses the IP port "10011" for the VAX/PDP11 serial line and starts the "Putty" terminal emulator (included in each CHARON distributive) with a "TXA0" saved session directing it to connect to the IP port "10011".

Look at the line "set TXA line[0]=TXA0" in the example. This one and the following lines of similar syntax map the loaded virtual controller ("TXA") to instances of host serial lines ("TXA<N>").

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VAX 6620 through VAX6660 models emulate 2-6 CPUs respectively. In this situation, loading of the host system can be tuned with the following configuration file settings:

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affinity

This setting binds the running instance of the emulator CPUs to particular host CPUs.

 This should be used for soft partitioning host CPU resources or for isolating multiple CHARON instances on the same host from each other. By default the emulator instance allocates as many host CPUs as possible. 

 “Affinity” overrides the default and allows explicit specification of which host CPUs will be used by the instance.Affinity does not reserve the CPU for exclusive use.

Example:

n_of_io_cpus

Reserves host CPUs (of those specified by “affinity” parameter, if any) for use by the emulator for I/O handling. 

By default the emulator instance reserves one third of available host CPUs for I/O processing (round down, at least one). 

The “n_of_io_cpus” overrides the default by specifying the number of I/O host CPUs explicitly.

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