Service management (Start, Stop, Manage automatic boot & shutdown)

Table of Contents

Description

Guests are managed as a service. This allows for starting and stopping guests on user or system request (Linux server boot & shutdown).

Clean service stop is not currently available with Fedora, available only for Red Hat.

The service works with a guests list containing the HW emulator name, configuration file and, optionally, the auto_boot on server startup parameter:

• Startup: the HW emulator is executed in detached mode (using ‘-d’ parameter) and then requires the console to be set as virtual serial line.
  • Connection to the console will be performed using telnet on defined localhost / port. If there is more than one guest on the server, guests are started in parallel.
  • Before the guest starts, the network interfaces used will be checked and all the offload parameters will be set offline
    
    
• Shutdown: a common shutdown script can be created for guests shutdown. See Create/Edit guest stop script for details.
  
  • If the script does not exist, the HW emulator is killed without proper guest shutdown.
  • If the script exists, it executes the customer defined scripts to perform a proper shutdown (using ‘ssh’ or ‘expect’ tool for example). If the HW emulator is still running after execution, the stop operation is considered as failed so the script must stop the emulator either by sending a “power off” at SRM prompt (AXP) or F6 key (VAX) with ‘expect’ or just by killing the process
  • If there is more than one guest on the server, guests are stopped in sequential mode based on their order in the guests list (order can be modified)

Menu description

• The first part of the menu displays server information like server boot time, current time (at display), number of CPUs and Memory Free / Total.
• The second part displays the list of emulated machines (guests) managed. Column details:
  • Emulator/Config File: emulator used with its configuration file name (shortened)
  • CPU: displays the number of CPUs:
    • for VAX: always 1
    • for AXP: based on configuration files settings (set n_of_cpus ...). If the information is not found, using default value for the selected hardware, "-" is displayed instead.
  • Mem: displays the amount of memory defined for the guest
  • State: can be either RUNNING, STARTING, STARTING/ALL (if all guests have been started at the same time), STOPPED.
    • If the guest is in STOPPED state, an additional information will be displayed:
      • REQUESTED: the service has been stopped by user request or has not been started on Linux server boot due to boot parameter set to off
      • FAILURE: the guest process failed
  • Stop script: displays the status of the stop script used to stop perform a clean shutdown of the guest. Can be:
    • Defined: the script exists and a case has been added for the specified configuration file
    • Case not set : the script exists but does not relate to the specified configuration file
    • Not found: the script has not been created. In this case, a service stop request will induce a kill of the emulator process
  • B: this columns displays the Boot no server startup value, yes or no.
• The third part displays the available options that are detailed below.

Menu options