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The Charon-PAR/PA3 functionality of Charon-PAR emulates historic PA-RISC systems for MPE/iX. This section shows a sample installation of an MPE/iX guest system

Emulator Licensing Considerations


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The emulator needs a valid license to run. The license can be a Sentinel HASP license or a Virtual Environment (VE) license. Please refer to Initial Emulator License Configuration for the basic license configuration steps of both options. The license(s) to be used are defined in the configuration file. If running in a cloud environment, a VE license is strongly recommended (supported from Charon-PAR version 3.0.6).

Downloading and Unpacking the Provided MPE/IX Disk Container

If not already done, please download the image with the preconfigured MPE/IX 7.5 disk container from Stromasys. Contact your Stromasys representative or your VAR for download instructions. The preconfigured LDev1 image allows the emulated system to boot without having to separately install or update MPE/iX.

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After this step, if the image is not needed for other systems, you can delete the compressed image to save disk space.

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Adapting the Configuration File Template

The configuration file template must be adapted to the customer environment and the required guest system characteristics. This section describes the minimum number of changes required to configure a Charon-PAR/PA3 emulator instance. Please refer to Configuration File Reference for a detailed description of the configuration file options.

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StepDescription (configuration file settings are examples!)
1Create a copy of the configuration file template.

Example: 

cd /data/Stromasys/host1/

# cp  /opt/charon/cfg/pa3.cfg host1.cfg

2Open the configuration file in a text editor.

# vi host1.cfg

or

gedit host1.cfg

3Configure the system model.model "A400-100-110"
Configured model must be covered by your license.
4Configure the RAM for the emulated system.memory 2G
5Configure LDEV 1 (preconfigured system disk).

Change definition of DKA0 to:

DKA0.image="/data/Stromasys/host1/Data/Disk/ldev1.dsk"

6Configure a tape devices.

Change definition of MKAx to:

MKA600.image="/data/Stromasys/host1/Data/Tape/ldev7.img"

MKA500.image="/data/Stromasys/host1/Data/Tape/ldev8.img"

7Configure a network card based on a physical host NIC. This NIC is dedicated to the guest operating system and cannot be used for network communication by the host system. To share an interface, a virtual bridge would have to be used (see Ethernet configuration sections in this document).

In the configuration file template, comment out the dummy interface and the tap interface configuration. Then uncomment the interface configuration of the physical interface example. Change the definition of EWA0 to the interface that is assigned to the emulated system (example: eth1) and disable the offload parameters for the interface:

EWA0.mapping_mode="RAW"

EWA0.iface="eth1"

EWA0.initialize_command="ethtool -K $IFACE rx off ; ethtool -K $IFACE tx off ; ethtool -K $IFACE sg off ; ethtool -K $IFACE gso off ; ethtool -K $IFACE gro off ; ethtool -K $IFACE txvlan off ; ethtool -K $IFACE rxvlan off"

Depending on the capabilities of the Ethernet device, not all off-load offload parameters maybe be available. This will create a warning message. The variable IFACE is set by the system before executing the initialize command.

For cloud environments, please note:

  • The MAC address on an interface must be the same as the one configured by the cloud provider on the dedicated interface. This should be the case by default for Charon-PAR. The IP address used by the guest OS must be the one configured by the cloud provider.
  • Virtual bridge configurations that are linked to a host NIC are not possible in cloud environments. Only "internal virtual bridge" configurations are possible. Such bridges can be used for host-guest communication. External communication for the guest can be achieved either by NAT or by routing configurations (depending on requirements and cloud-specific restrictions). A less complex, TAP based solution is to use a MACVTAP interface (using MAC and IP address assigned by the cloud provider).
8Save the configuration file.


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Starting the Charon-PAR/PA3 Emulator Instance

Please note: The examples in this section assume that a graphical interface is used, on which a PuTTY session can be run. Should this not be possible, you can access the console of the emulated system by using, for example, a telnet client and pointing it to the TCP port on the Charon host defined for the serial console port in the configuration file. The default port is 30000 (sample command to connect to an emulator on the local system: $ telnet <charon-host> localhost 30000). In this case, do not start the PuTTY program automatically from the emulator configuration.

To start the Charon-PAR/PA3 emulator instance, perform the following steps:

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If everything works, you will see log output in the current terminal window ending an in a pa3> prompt. This is the Charon-PAR emulator console. Please note: the prompt may be obscured by log messages and not be immediately visible. In this case, press the Enter key once to display the prompt.

Should you receive an error indicating that PuTTY cannot load the preconfigured font, open PuTTY as the root user, load the PAR-Telnet profile, select a font that is available on your host system and save the profile.

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The image below shows how to use the HELLO command to log into the booted guest system:

Basic Network Configuration

Default configuration

The preconfigured MPE/iX disk also includes preconfigured network settings:

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Stromasys provides a special command file (SETIP.CHARON.SYS) in the preconfigured MPE image. This command file enables the user to configure the network without using a block-mode terminal that would otherwise be required to access the relevant MPE utility (NMMGR).

The command file takes three parameters: host IP address, default gateway address, and netmask. The image below shows a sample:

After changing the configuration, the command file will automatically restart the network to activate the changes.

For cloud environments, please note: in case of a dedicated Ethernet interface, the IP address of the emulator must be set to the value assigned by the cloud provider to the corresponding host NIC.


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Stopping the Emulator

In order to stop the emulator in an orderly manner, perform the following steps:

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d) Wait until the system displays the "Shutdown of operating system complete. (Shut 6)" message.

Please note: The =SHUTDOWN command only works on the system console. The :SHUTDOWN command does not have this requirement. However, it is not as safe a method as the =SHUTDOWN command.

2. After Starting with version 3.0.5, the emulator is stopped automatically after the guest operating system shutdown is complete , stop the emulator (it (unless the configuration parameter system.stop_on_halt has been set to false). If the emulator is not stopped automatically after the shutdown of the guest operating system). Different , different methods must be used for to stop it in different situations:

  • The emulator was started in interactive mode and the Charon-PAR console is available in current terminal: enter the exit command at thepa3>prompt and hit Enter. This will cause the emulator to close the disk images of the emulated system and to exit.
  • The Charon-PAR console is available on a local TCP port (emulator started with -c or --console-port parameter): this situation will exist most frequently if the emulator has been started as a daemon or service. To stop the emulator access the Charon-PAR console via telnet to localhost on the port specified when starting the emulator, enter the exit command at the pa3> prompt, and hit Enter.
    Access to the Charon-PAR console via a TCP port is available starting with Charon-PAR version 3.0.1. The CTRL+B key combination has been disabled on the emulator console starting with this version.
  • The emulator was started as a daemon or service and the Charon-PAR console is not available via a local TCP port: This situation can occur if you run a version before 3.0.1 or you started the emulator without the -c option.
    • For versions 3.0.1 and higher: the emulator must be stopped using the kill command from the root user on the Charon host system. Perform the following steps to stop the Charon-PAR process:
      • Find the PID (process id) of the process: # ps -ef | grep -i charon-par
      • Stop the process: # kill <charon-par-pid>
    • For versions before 3.0.1: on the emulator console, after shutting down the guest operating system, press CTRL+B. After a few seconds, the PDC console prompt (Main menu:) will appear. Type exit to stop the emulator.

For more information about the Charon-PAR console, please refer to Charon-PAR Console. For more information about the Charon-PAR command-line options, please refer to Charon-PAR Command-Line Options.

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