Table of Contents

Charon-AXP symbolic links

Each model of Charon-AXP has a symbolic link defined to point to the corresponding Charon executable (see the table below). If the PATH is correctly defined, you can start a virtual machine by specifying the link followed by the configuration file. This is described further.

Running Charon-AXP emulators

It is possible to run one or several instances of Charon-AXP at the same time if your license allows it.

For multiple instances, please use only absolute paths and unique names to all the files referenced in the configuration file of each Charon-AXP instance (log, toy clock, rom files and all the other data such as disk images [Exception: clustering] - all these objects will be explained later in this document) and check the hardware devices (the CDROM drive for example) are used by only one instance at a time (not shared).

Example:

Please refer to the next chapters for more details concerning Charon-AXP configuration details.

Running from the console

Copy the selected configuration template from the "/opt/charon/cfg/" directory to some local file and set the correct privileges for the file to be edited.

Example:

Run the virtual machine using this configuration file:

Below is an example of a normal Alpha test sequence, followed by the prompt sign (">>>"):

The next stage can be either installation of a new Alpha/VMS system using distribution media or data transfer from some existing Alpha system. These possibilities will be discussed in details in the next chapters.

If for some reason Charon-AXP refuses to start, please look for files with .log extension (Charon-AXP log files) located in the directory from where Charon-AXP was started, open them with an editing tool and analyze their content. In most cases those files contain very helpful information on what went wrong.

To exit from the Charon-AXP emulator use the following methods:

Please note the following:

• Before stopping Charon-AXP, a clean shutdown of the operating system running on the virtual machine has to be performed.
• The total number of devices (both controllers and units, including disks) displayed by Charon SRM console is limited to 48. This does not affect the actual number of configured devices provided to Charon guest OS.

Options for running Charon-AXP from console

If "-h" of "--help" option is specified when running Charon-AXP from console, it displays a list of additional available options:

Usage:

  <program-name> [options] [<configuration-file-name>]

Command line options:

  -l,--log <file-name>             - write log to the file (overwrite),
                                     until configuration is loaded;
  -la,--log-append <file-name>     - write log to the file (append),
                                     until configuration is loaded;
  -f,--configuration <file-name>   - read configuration from the file;
  -d,--daemon                      - run detached;
  -h,--help                        - display this text

Note that configuration file must be supplied either as a command line
operand <configuration-file-name> or using '-f' command line option followed
by name of the configuration file.

Options to use with CHARON Manager:

  -a,--alias <alias-name>          - virtual machine alias name;
  -s,--shm-name <shm-name>         - name of shared memory section

The last 2 options are used for running Charon-AXP in Baremetal environment,

Running as system service (daemon)

It is possible to run Charon-AXP as a daemon (service). In this case the Charon-AXP process will be detached from its parent process and from the terminal window in which it runs.

Follow the description below to install and execute Charon-AXP as a daemon:

Installation and start of Charon-AXP service

1. Copy the sample script "/opt/charon/bin/charon.service" to the "/usr/lib/systemd/system/" directory.
   
   Example:
   $ cp /opt/charon/bin/charon.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/es40.service
$ chmod 755 /usr/lib/systemd/system/es40.service


2. Edit the copied file to replace sample values of the following parameters.
   
   Example:
   ExecStart=/opt/charon/bin/es40 -d /my_services/es40-service.cfg
WorkingDirectory=/my_services


3. Create and edit the configuration file ( "/my_services/es40-service.cfg" in the examples above) the way it was described before and make sure the following pre-requisites are met:

• OPA0 must be configured as a virtual port or physical console, not as an operator console.

  Example:

  set COM1 alias=OPA0 port=10003 #set COM1 alias = OPA0 line = (console)

• Use only absolute paths to log, toy clock, nvram files and all the other data such as disk images, etc. The names of the references files must be unique.

  Example:

  ... set session log="/CharonInstances/1st_es40.log" set rom container="/CharonInstances/1st_es40.bin" set toy container="/CharonInstances/1st_es40.dat" set PKA container[0]="/CharonInstances/1st_es40_boot_disk.vdisk" ...

• Make sure the same physical devices are not used by other Charon-AXP daemons and the OPA0 console port number is unique across the Charon server.
  
  

Once the configuration file is ready, execute the following commands (based on the examples above) to install and start Charon-AXP as a daemon:
# systemctl enable es40.service
# systemctl start es40.service

Please note:

• If you update the /usr/lib/systemd/system/<my virtual machine>.service file, the following command must be executed in order to take changes into account:

  # systemctl daemon-reload

Important information:

Note that a certain delay may appear in finding network licenses by Sentinel Run-time on Charon-AXP host system startup. If the Charon-AXP service is starting automatically at host system startup, it may report a "License not found" error and exit.

This problem can be avoided by specifying the "license_key_lookup_retry" parameter in the following way:

set session license_key_lookup_retry = "N [, T]"

where:

• N = Number of retries looking for the license key (or keys)
• T =Time between retries in seconds. If not specified, 60 seconds is used
  

Example:

set session license_key_lookup_retry = 5

In this example, if the license key is not found during initial scan, Charon-AXP will do 5 more attempts waiting 60 seconds between them.

See General Settings section for more details.

Stopping Charon-AXP service

To stop a Charon-AXP daemon, use the following commands.

Example:
# systemctl stop es40

Please note that before stopping a Charon-AXP service, a clean shutdown of the operating system ("guest") running on the emulator must be performed. Stopping the emulator when the guest is still running should be the last resort when all attempts to stop the guest have failed.

Removing Charon-AXP service

To remove a Charon-AXP daemon use the following commands.

Example:
# systemctl disable es40.service
# rm -f /usr/lib/systemd/system/es40.service

Please note that before removing a Charon-AXP service, a clean shutdown of the operating system running on the virtual machine has to be performed and the service has to be stopped.

Please refer to the next chapters for more details concerning Charon-AXP configuration details