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Please review this document before proceeding with installation of Charon-AXP.

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• CPU requirements:

  • The number of available x86/x64 compatible (Intel or AMD) CPU cores in the hosting server should be at least 150% of the number of emulated CPU cores.

  • The recommended number of available (Intel or AMD) CPU cores in the hosting server is twice the number of emulated CPU cores.

  • Intel Xeon E-series v3 and above with a CPU clock frequency from 3GHz; to achieve the best performance use the latest Intel Xeon CPUs from the Scalable Processors family.

• Memory requirements:

  • DDR4 RAM 2133 MHz and above is recommended for optimal Charon performance.

  • The minimum host memory size depends on the amount of emulated AXP memory and on the number of Charon instances running on one host. The minimum host memory = (2Gb +  the amount of HP Alpha memory emulated) per Charon-AXP instance.

• Mid range and high end RAID controllers with at least 1GB cache with write-back enabled and battery backup option is recommended.
  (Using low-end RAID controllers may cause significant performance degradation and Charon-AXP crash. RAID5 and similar configurations are not recommended.)

• Intel HT (Hyper-Threading Technology) should be disabled on the hosting server.

• The hosting server should always run at full speed. Power management, USB power saving management and the screen saver should be disabled on the hosting server.

• Windows UAC should be disabled.

• The Port Group Security Tab containing the Charon network adapter(s) must be set to Promiscuous mode, MAC Address Change and Forged Transmit=Accept.

New functionality

• Support for Windows 11, Windows Server 2022

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• The firmware does not support the command recall using the up/down arrow keys.

• The VMS 7.x Monitor utility shows the maximum CPU quantity instead of actually configured quantity. It does not apply to VMS 8.x.

• Running Alpha Linux on the virtual Alpha is not supported.

• Use of IDE is limited to ATAPI CDROM on the host machine. No iSCSI support is planned for IDE. UETP may produce error messages if IDE emulation is used.

• A Telnet session from OpenVMS running on emulated host freezes console output. The console output can hang when the virtual serial line sends XOFF/XON sequence. The TELNET client sends XOFF to the remote node's TELNET server to suspend output, but for unknown reason XON is discarded and remote node's TELNET server is unable to resume output. The console remains "frozen" as the remote site is not sending any output to it. When that happens, the local node is reachable over network, and can be unlocked by typing the 'break' character - usually "Ctrl-]" and exiting telnet session by typing "exit" at "TELNET>" prompt.

• Emacs hangs if the OPA0 console is used. Emacs works fine over an SSH connection.

• Charon-AXP does not support Microsoft virtual network adapters (i.e. MS bridges, etc.).

• Charon-AXP has limited support for teamed network adapters. They can be used only if the MAC address of the virtual VMS or Tru64 network adapter is not changed during the Charon-AXP session. In which case the desired MAC address should not be set manually in the properties of the network team or in the Charon-AXP configuration file using the "station_address=XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX" configuration option.

• VMS 7.2-1 should be patched to the latest level in order to use Emulex FC adapters in pass-through mode.

• Please note that Charon-AXP has not been tested with SAN attached storage over 2TB per disk in size.

• Tru64 temperature monitoring should be disabled. It could cause Tru64 version 5.x shutdown with the message: "system fan has failed, system is shutting down now". If installing Tru64 from scratch, do not install envmon package. If it is already installed, disable automatic startup by booting into SINGLE USER mode and issue the following commands:

then "exit" (Ctrl-D) to multi user mode.

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• The message "Failed to locate the "TTAx" for the line xx" displayed for intentionally not configured TTA lines is removed (ID#2650)

• Sometimes the "Failed to create symbolic link to the packet driver" error blocks Charon-AXP normal networking despite its configuration is correct (ID#2554, 3182)

• UETP fails on a tape image if Charon runs on VMware (ID#2427)

• Unable to install AS2x00/AS4x00 emulators ("--install" command) (ID#2294)

• Windows Server 2008 CN: "Invisible" Installation Log (empty log file) (ID#2678)

• ds10l.exe installation fails on Win2008 Chinese version (ID#2685)

• DE435 is offline with VMS 6.2-1H3 on AS4100 (ID#2680)

• The firmware does not detect DE450 adapter and therefore does not print it in the device list (ID#2652)

• DE450 remains OFFLINE in VMS (ID#2653)

• Problem using CDROM on an HP blade server via USB (ID#2651)

• Digital UNIX 4.0B fails to install on AlphaServer 400 (ID#2631)

• Console logs are not appended to by default (ID#2628)

• AS400 Emulator crash while installing Digital UNIX 4.0F (ID#2619)

• AS2000 and AS2100 unable to "create an instance of the component dec_21040" (ID#2597)

• Incorrect behavior on HALT command in kernel mode (ID#2595)

• ES40 Emulator crashed when performing the SWINGBENCH test (ID#2586)

• "-FILE" boot option of the SRM console was not implemented (ID#2102)

• A file "mkdisk.vtable" is absent in the kit -- without it MKDISK cannot start (ID#2589).

• The configuration template for the AS400 model has incorrect HW_MODEL syntax and is missing the PKB bus (ID#2373).

• Incorrect text encoding in the NetDiag help on Chinese systems (ID#2373).

• Tru64 V5.1B was unable to load driver for DEC 21040 PCI Ethernet Adapter (ID#2304).

• Charon-AXP crashed on UETP test (ID#2348).

• Ticket #7079: Charon crashed on a production system with segmentation violation (ID#2389)

• The old .BIN files lead to Charon misbehavior. It should be replaced for new one (ID#2447)

• A disk device goes offline suddenly with the "mount verification in progress" message (ID#2512)

• Tru64/tar utility is unable to write if the output device is a tape. (ID#2383)

• Failed to unload the virtual tape on Tru64. (ID#2385)

• VMS 7.2-1 booted on DS10L and DS20 with FC Pass-Through enabled hangs VMS. (ID#2390)

• Some configured disks disappeared from the OpenVMS environment (SRM console) under Charon-AXP/B108 AS4100.(ID#2393)

• Charon-AXP/ES40 is unable to boot Tru64 from FC attached disk (ID#2412).

• TOY data (including data/time) is not saved (ID#2414).

• Install procedure does not issue warnings when unsupported host platform is used (ID#2431).

• Putty Console does not work (no proper session is available) when Charon-AXP runs as a service (ID#2452).

• Ticket #7682: "BOOT EWA0" command in the SRM console leads to the emulators hanging (ID#2469).

• ID#2470 - Ticket #7684: BOOT DKA500 may boot from wrong device.

• ID#2471 - Ticket #7687: Pressing "F6" button terminates emulator. The default behavior has been changed to "none".

• Ticket #7716: SRM console HELP command is missing (ID#2472).

• Network Control Center utility does not recognize teamed interfaces (ID#2331)

• Some license messages are absent in the LOG file, for example "the license is expired" (ID#2040)

• NFS issue: "cp" command never ends and the "cp" process becomes zombie (ID#2257)

• SRM variables get saved in wrong console variables (ID#2295)

• Handling of some exceptional cases in DIT2 due to resource lock must be implemented to avoid possible overflow (ID#2404).

• Grammar error in message text: some typos have been corrected (ID#2428)

• Embedded network adapters and additional ones (having the same name) conflict without any notification (ID#2429)

• System hangs OpenVMS 7.1-2 with printing jobs (ID#2441)

• Compilation of C code using FP flags /FLOAT=IEEE /IEEE=DENORM result in zero values (ID#2446)

• log_method="append" does not work if specified separately from the other configuration commands for the logging definition (ID#2450).

• Utilities help does not start on "F1" on Windows 2008 / Vista operating systems (ID#2498)

• Ultrium tape drive fails on all VMS commands (ID#2386)

• Ticket #7774: Problems NDIS6 driver - memory leak was found (ID#2490)

• Many question marks sometimes displayed in the Network Control Center Chinese help file (ID#2373)

• Tape error: "-BACKUP-F-NOTANSI, tape is not valid ANSI format" (ID#2521)

• Exception (C0000005): Segmentation violation occurs on different configuration and applications (ID#2527, 2528, 2534, 2510)

• The OpenVMS V8.3 CPUSANITY bugcheck while performing KGPSA initialization

• Outgoing FTP hang problem on GS80/GS160 models (ID#1999)

• A problem with Fortran compiled code generating exceptions (ID#145)

• Several problems with physical tapes including tape initialization, label handling, tape restore and Files-11 file system on the tape

• A problem reporting version 2.2 instead of 2.3 in the SRM console

• A problem with VMS freezing during shutdown

• A problem with freezing VMS boot after "%PKQDRIVER-W- PKA0, Chip reset failed, trying again" error message

• A problem with EW devices not showing up at AS2x00 CRM console

• A problem with multi instance configuration preventing more than one Charon-AXP instance from running

• A problem with certain CPU affinity configurations causing "division by zero" crash

• "Back" button does not always work during installation

• An error message could appear during uninstallation of Charon-AXP through Control Panel

• Setting particular disk and tape types with media_type parameter on KZPBA is not supported for \\PhysicalDriveX configuration style

• Emulated PCI network adapter DE435 is not recognized in the AXP SRM console, however it is recognized and works for the guest OS.

• Charon-AXP may wrongly report that no license is present if the correct license is present.

• Too many scheduled starts and stops of Charon-AXP service in a short period of time could cause Charon-AXP crash.

• AlphaServer model 2100 could have problems with initializing of the network controller (DECchip 21040).

• Charon Network Control Center utility does not have proper Simplified Chinese interface.

• Ultrium SCSI-1 DAT-72 tape drives currently do not work with Charon-AXP.

• Virtual tape cannot be unloaded and container file replaced on Tru64.

Related Documents

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Charon-AXP V4.12 for Windows first2- User's Guide

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http://www.stromasys.com

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