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WORK IN PROGRESS

Stromasys  Charon-AXP

Version: 1 - Published: 20  

Table of Contents

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  • A Charon license update is required before upgrading. Stromasys might request a HASP dongle state (c2v file) or a host fingerprint taken by HASP Update Service (which is included in the Charon kit) in order to issue a license update. Please refer to License installation for details.
  • Uninstall any installed version of Charon-AXP before installing the new version.
  • If VMware is used, it must be upgraded to version 5.x, 6.0, 6.5 or 6.7.
  • The Tru64 kernel might require a rebuild for some emulated AXP models that are included in the Charon-AXP/4100 product.
  • It is recommended to archive the old Charon log files before starting the new version in order to avoid mixing character encoding in the log files.
  • Charon-AXP cannot be started remotely via ssh, telnet, VNC, etc., if a local HASP dongle is used. Please use the Charon Linux Toolkit. Alternatively, network dongle or network software license, including software licenses, can be used. Another option is to configure Charon-AXP as a Linux service/daemon manually. See "Running as system service" chapter for details on how to configure Charon-AXP as a service/daemon.
  • Intelligent packet processing should be switched off for the network adapters dedicated to Charon with "Network Configuration Utility" (ncu) utility. Please refer to FTP, NFS, and general network issues with Charon-AXP and Charon-AXP on Linux for details.
  • Linux Xterm does not provide the full functionality of a VT100 terminal by default. Please refer to the user manual for the details of setting up the mode for emulating VT100.
  • The Charon-AXP configuration file should be reviewed if migrating from Charon-AXP for Windows. Windows specific configuration parameters (for example, network adapter references) should be changed to Linux specific parameters. Please refer to the Charon-AXP V4.11 for Linux user's guidefor details.
  • Charon executable files, libraries and data (disk container files) files should be excluded from all the antivirus checks, including on-the-fly checks and scheduled scans.
  • HT (Hyper-Threading Technology) should be disabled on the hosting server.
  • Power management and screen saver should be switched off on the hosting server.
  • Please note that the actual network communication speed and mode are determined by the Linux network speed and mode settings. This feature is required to avoid network timeouts in VMS and Tru64 during the negotiation phase.
  • The console definition syntax has been changed in the configuration file starting with v4.9, please read the user's guide.
  • If "IDLE" utility is going to be used, perform the following commands after its installation:


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where <N> is number of the I/O CPUs dedicated to Charon. If this value is not set (the default value is used) it is recommended to specify it explicitly.


Other restrictions:

  • Network and tape booting is not currently supported.
  • The total number of devices (both controllers and units, including disks) displayed by the Charon SRM console is 48. However, more devices are available to VMS and Tru64. Note that it does not affect the actual number of configured devices provided to the Charon Guest OS.
  • IDLE works only once, right after CharonCP installation. As soon as VMS reboots, host CPU utilization returns to maximum and does not drop untill VMS shutdown (ID#5343).

  • The Charon emulated console supports only 80 symbols in one line.

  • telnet negotiation does not work correctly on serial console.
  • CD-ROM cannot be configured as "/dev/cdrom" for IDE CD-ROM (ID#3042).
  • In some specific situations, the virtual disks descriptions can be displayed as "Virtual SCSI Disk (C)SRI" in SRM console. This problem does not affect Charon functionality (ID#4729).
  • Hardware partitioning is not supported by Charon. However the same hardware layout can be emulated with multiple Charon instances on the same host.
  • If Charon is mapped to a physical CD-ROM it may be displayed as a "Virtual CD-ROM" in Charon SRM console. It happens due to some restriction of the Linux CD-ROM interface ("dev/sr", "/dev/scd", "/dev/cdrom") - it does now allow to query actual peripheral identification (SCSI Vendor ID / SCSI Product ID). The workaround is:
    - Usage of the "media_type" parameter in configuration file. See the User's Guide for more information.
    - Usage of the SCSI Generic Interface ("/dev/sg<N>") rather than the CD-ROM ("dev/sr<N>", "/dev/scd<N>", "/dev/cdrom") interface. (ID#4564).
  • PCI Passthrough KGPSA emulation may not work correctly if physical FC PCI adapter shares PCI interrupt line with any other PCI module(s).
  • Installation of Digital UNIX 4.0g fails on AS4100 when FC is configured (ID#3191).
  • Physical tapes and generic SCSI devices currently do not work. The patch will be released as soon as the problem is fixed.
  • Charon-AXP does not emulate the LSI 53C810 SCSI controller. Charon-AXP emulates the Qlogic KZPBA SCSI controller, which is the reason that the earliest supported VMS version is 6.2-1H3, and earliest supported Tru64 version is 3.2. If the driver for KZPBA is installed on an earlier version of VMS or Tru64 before system transfer to Charon-AXP, it will function on Charon-AXP (ID#2291).
  • Non fatal "ERRFMT BUGCHECK" message may appear on boot from a backup disk created by Charon-AXP. This message does not affect OpenVMS normal startup (ID#3123).
  • By default the layout of the right part of the PC keyboard is not mapped to the layout of the VT100 keyboard. Use a special script created by Geoff Kingsmill. Run this script, then run Charon-AXP normally. (ID#3030).
  • Telnet sessions to Charon-AXP console ports do not support ESC sequences of VT100 by default. To enable it open xterm, connect to Charon-AXP and press "Ctrl-]" once connected. Then issue a command "mode char" to enable character mode. If it is also required to map righthand part of the keyboard correctly use the xterm started by the Geoff Kingsmill script (see above). (ID#3030). See this article for more: Input issues with telnet.
  • A "CRC error" may occur when running the command "BACKUP/LIST/REW MKA100:..." on OpenVMS Alpha Version 8.4. This problem can also be observed on AXP hardware (ID#2925).
  • There is no DE500-BA device driver for OpenVMS 6.2-1H3. VMS patches are necessary in order to support the DE500-BA device with the emulator models AS1200/AS4000/AS4100 (ID#3091). The VMS 6.2-1H3 patches for these models are: 
    ALPBOOT12_062
    ALPLAN06_062
    ALPCLUSIO01_062
    ALPCPU1603_062 (is CPU specific for AS4100. Please check VMS patch documentation for relevant patches for other Alpha models).
  • The DE500-BA device error count will be equal to 1 on OpenVMS 8.2/8.3. It has no negative effect on VMS boot and operations (ID#2963).
  • Performance tests can cause VMS 6.2-1H3 to hang on an emulated AS400.

  • Network speed auto negotiation works with some restrictions (see the table below). It is always recommended to use full-duplex mode on the emulator host.

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  • DEC ZLXp-E1 PCI Graphics Adapter (based on DECchip 21030 PCI Graphics Accelerator) is supported, Charon provides a virtual console for displaying graphics (ID#5092).
  • LP8000 (KGPSA) is now supported over SG3 (Linux SCSI generic) interface (on RHEL and CentOS 7.x only) (ID#5378).
  • AlphaStation Soundcard (PCXBJ) is supported on Tru64 UNIX (ID#5412).
  • Linux bonding adapters are supported (ID#4750).
  • Charon stability is improved (ID#5483, 5331).
  • LTO-6 Tape support is improved (ID#5391).
  • Kernel version and System release are included to the log (ID#5393).
  • Log is flushed regularly and asynchronously to facilitate online LOG monitoring by third-party tools (ID#5532).
  • VMware Ethernet adapters: in addition to the E1000, E1000E and VMXNETx adapters are now fully supported.
  • Copyright notes are updated in all sample configuration files (ID#5399).
  • Licensing mechanism is improved (ID#5375, 5458, 5459).
  • Network License management processing changes (ID#4631).
  • hasp_srm_view output is improved (ID#5392).
  • "ncu" utility is improved (ID#5404).

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  • To address security issues, new Sentinel LDK 7.6 is used for building this release; most up-to-date Sentinel run-time (v7.63) is included (ID#5211, ID#5227).
  • Network performance and stability has been significantly improved (ID#5111, ID#4987).
  • Built-in serial lines (OPA0 and TTA0) have been re-considered and alternative implementation is provided to resolve multiple issues (ID#4844, Case #00028691).
  • USB physical drive support is improved (ID#3323).
  • BYPASS disks support is improved (ID#4999).
  • Deep queuing of disk I/O requests is implemented (ID#3144).
  • Audio Interface for AlphaStation (for models AS400, DS10, DS15) is implemented (ID#4717).
  • Virtual PBXDA serial lines controller is implemented (ID#4776).
  • DS15 and DS25 preloaded network adapter model (EW* or EI*) can be specified (ID#4886).
  • New feature for the AXP emulator SRM console has been implemented to allow booting Tru64 from SAN volumes having no UDID (ID#5238).
  • Guest-to-guest communication over virtual SCSI bus is implemented (ID#5044).
  • Soft limit on the required host CPU number is set according to the "n_of_cpus" parameter (ID#5137).
  • User part of Charon configuration (set by CFG file) is reflected in the log (ID#5156).
  • Some improvements of the messages in the log (ID#5356).
  • Minor update in Charon logs on Linux: kernel version and system release are added (ID#5393).
  • Hard-coded host system limits are replaced with limits encoded in the license's memory block (ID#3263).
  • Hard-coded upper limit on license check interval to 168 hours is increased (ID#5031, Case #00029470).
  • New configuration options "license_use_any_key" and "license_id" are implemented (ID#5289).
  • Should Charon lose access to its license, the product now offers a longer grace period and more frequent intermediate checks.
  • RPM script is improved for update process (ID#5139).
  • hasp_srm_view is improved (ID#5027, ID#5214, ID#5243, ID#5304, ID#5322).
  • TapeUtil (CharonCP) is improved (ID#3589).
  • NCU is improved (ID#5133, ID#4950).

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