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

Table of Contents

Description

Guests (CHARON virtual machines) are managed as services, this menu option allows you to start and stop them on your or on 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 ( at service level, not same as SRM console level) parameters:

• Startup: the virtual machine 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. 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.
  • If the script exists, it executes the customer defined command lines to perform a proper shutdown (using ‘ssh’ or ‘expect’ tool for example). If the virtual machine process is still running after execution, the stop operation is considered as failed so for Linux systems not using systemd (Red Hat 6) 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. For Linux systems using systemd (Red Hat 7 and Fedora), the process is killed by the system.
  • If there is more than one guest on the server, guests are stopped in sequential mode based on their order in the guests list. This order can be modified from the menu: this is valid only for Linux systems not using systemd (Red Hat 6), for other systems, 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 like server boot time, current time (at display), number of CPUs and Memory Free / Total.

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

  Column	Description
  Emulator/Config File	Emulator used with its configuration file name (shortened)
  CPU	Displays the number of CPUs by looking into configuration file settings (set n_of_cpus ...) first then using default value for the selected hardware. If no information is available, "-" is displayed instead. The number of CPUs displayed does represent the number defined in the configuration file or the default number of cpus for this hardware model. The real number of CPUs the virtual machine owns depends on the CHARON server HW limitations, CHARON licenses and also licenses on the virtual machine side
  Mem	Displays the amount of memory defined in the configuration file (if defined). If no information is available, "-" is displayed instead.
  State	For Red Hat 6 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 For Red Hat 7 and Fedora (using both systemd) 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
  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. In this case, 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 your commands to perform a clean shutdown of the guest (OpenVMS or Tru64 virtual machine). For more information, see Service 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 you added a new guest.
  B	Displays the Boot server startup value, Yes or No.

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

Examples

Red Hat 6 - Virtual machine up and running

Red Hat 7 - Virtual machine up and running

Due to improvements added in service management with systemd, more information is displayed on the service

Red Hat 7 - Virtual machine failed due to kill signal sent by the administrator

A "kill -kill <pid>" command has been sent to the virtual machine process.

Menu options

• Service management - Update guests list
• Service management - Start/stop guests
• Service management - View guest log file
• Service management - View guest manager log file
• Service management - Install or update service
• Service management - Create/Edit guest stop script
• Service management - Connect to guest console
• Service management - Edit configuration files
• Service management - Manage monitored guests logs