Table of Contents

Description

Manages the Charon virtual machines (guests) defined as services, used to create, delete, start and stop virtual machines on user request or upon system request (Linux server boot & shutdown).

The service works with a guests list containing the emulator executable file name, configuration file and, optionally, the auto_boot on server startup parameter ( at service level, not the same as the emulated machine).

• Startup: the virtual machine is executed in detached mode (using ‘-x’ parameter) and then requires the console port to be set.
  • Connection to the console will be performed using telnet on the defined localhost / port. This can also be performed using other utilities like putty. 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 "Service management - Create/Edit guest stop script" for details.
  
  • If the script does not exist, the virtual machine process is killed without proper guest shutdown. This is the equivalent of a server power off.
  • If the script exists, it executes the customer defined command lines to perform a proper shutdown (using ‘ssh’, 'rsh' or ‘expect’ for example). If the virtual machine process is still running after execution, the process is killed by the system (SIGKILL).
  • If there is more than one guest on the server, guests are stopped in parallel mode during server shutdown. If a specific order is required, the services description files will have to be modified to add dependencies using Before= or After= for example. For more information, see manpages: # man systemd.unit

Menu description

• The first part of the menu displays server information: server boot time, number of CPUs and Memory Free / Total.
• This description is valid for all menu options displaying the virtual machines list and for the "vmlist" command line.

• The second part displays the list of virtual machines (guests) managed. Column details:

  Column	Description
  Configuration File	Configuration file name.
  CPU	Displays the number of CPUs by looking for the 'model' parameter into configuration file settings and searching in a predefined file containing the list of models and cpu numbers. If no information is available, "-" is displayed instead.
  Memory	Displays the amount of memory defined in the configuration file (if defined). If no information is available, "-" is displayed instead.
  State	can be either ACTIVE, ACTIVATING, INACTIVE, DEACTIVATING, FAILED or UNKNOWN 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

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• Depending on settings and virtual machine state, more information can be displayed

  • Emulator
  • Description
  • Auto-restart settings. This feature is managed by systemd and described in the Tips and Tricks chapter.
  • Service start and/or stop timeouts and Start on boot. Start on boot value means the Charon virtual machine will be started on Linux server boot but not necessarily booted. To automatically boot the virtual machine on startup, please refer to the Charon-PAR and console settings.
  • Start/stop date if available
  • Stop script - Displays the status of the stop script used to perform a clean shutdown of the guest. Can be:
    • Not found: the script has not been created. If not found, a service stop request will induce a kill of the emulator process
    • To customize: the script exists and a case line has been added for the specified configuration file. It must however be customized with some commands to perform a clean shutdown of the guest (HP-UX or MPE/iX virtual machine).
      For more information and examples, see VM management - Create/Edit guest stop script
    • Case not set : the script exists but does not relate to the specified configuration file. This means it has either been created manually or initialized automatically by the menu and a new guest has been added after initialization.
    • [Using XXX] where XXX can be EXPECT, RSH or SSH: the script exists and a case line has been added for the specified configuration file and it uses the shutdown scripts provided with the kit
    • Customized : a customized script or command lines is/are used
  • Protected against Out Of Memory Killer (OOM Killer)
  • Pre-start script if defined (the 3 first lines are displayed)
  • Console port
  • Guest OS response (optional, see Service management - Create/Edit guest stop script / Optional guest display status script)
  • The license status is displayed in case of events: communication lost/restored, license found, ...
  • Network Interfaces settings with some checks performed. A NIC displayed followed by a number between parenthesis means an issue has been discovered: (1)=NIC does not exist, (2)=NIC is not managed by ncu (if installed), (3)=NIC is already used, (4)=NIC has an IP address.
    .

• The third part displays the available options that are detailed further.

Example

Notes: 

• A star besides the emulator name means next commands lines like vmstop, vmcfg and vmconsole will use this virtual machine if no other one is specified.
• If Auto-restart needs to be set for this service, please read the Tips and Tricks chapter.
• "Description" and "Service Timeouts" are defined at service level. This is described here: VM management - Manage 'systemd' services.
• "Guest OS answer" is based on an optional script performing an ssh connection to the HP-UX system. This is described here: VM management - Create/Edit guest stop script. If the guest OS response returns error code 255, this means the legacy system is not booted or there is a network problem.

Menu options

• VM management - Update guests list
• VM management - Start/stop guests
• VM management - Connect to guest console
• VM management - Edit configuration files
• VM management - Manage 'systemd' services
• VM management - View guest log file
• VM management - Create/Edit guest stop script
• VM management - Create/Edit guest pre-start script
• VM management - Create/Edit guest check/run script