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CHARON Guest Utilities for OpenVMS

CHARON Guest Utilities for OpenVMS

Aug 17, 2020

Table of Contents

 

General Description

The "CHARON Guest Utilities for OpenVMS" (CHARONCP) package contains several utilities for managing virtual tapes, changing the emulator speed and creating useful definitions for that operations.

This set of utilities is located in the "charoncp013.vdisk" disk file in the "C:\Program Files\CHARON\Virtual Disk Images\Tape utilities package".

Supported OpenVMS versions: OpenVMS 6.1 and above.

In case of OpenVMS upgrade, CHARONCP will have to be re-installed.

 

Installation

Specify this image in the CHARON configuration file, boot from the system disk and mount the disk with the following OpenVMS command:

$ MOUNT <device name> /OVERRIDE=IDENTIFICATION


Issue the following commands to install the package:

$ @SYS$UPDATE:VMSINSTAL

* Are you satisfied with the backup of your system disk [YES]? YES
* Where will the distribution volumes be mounted: <device name>:[000000.CHARONCP013.KIT]

Enter the products to be processed from the first distribution volume set.
* Products: CHARONCP013

Select all the components included to the package:

Component Selection

Select the CHARONCP components you wish to install from the menu below.
An asterisk appears next to the packages that have already been
selected. You can remove a package from the list by selecting it
again. You may enter more than one selection by separating your
choices with commas.

1. [*] CHARONCP Guest Utility (REQUIRED)
2. [*] Compatability Utilities
3. [*] Install DCL Commands & Help

4. Exit

* Your choice [4]: 4

Proceed with installation using all the default options.

Once the installation is completed, add the following line to the "SYS$STARTUP:SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM" file for the package to be loaded automatically at system startup::

$ @SYS$STARTUP:CHARONCP_STARTUP

After that the package will be loaded automatically on startup.

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Performance optimization

CHARON takes 100% of host CPU even in case of idle state of guest OpenVMS operating system. To get rid of such resources consumption there is a specific option provided by CHARON Guest Utilities - "idle" mode.

To load the OpenVMS idle loop detection software, use:

$ CHARONCP SET IDLE /ENABLE

This allows CHARON to detect when the emulated CPU(s) are idle and use the host power saving instructions to reduce power usage.

To unload the OpenVMS idle loop detection software, use:

$ CHARONCP SET IDLE /DISABLE

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Adjusting emulator's speed

CHARON speed can be adjusted using these commands.

To increase the emulator speed by the specified number of steps, use:

$ CHARONCP SET SPEED /UP=<number of steps>


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W.Erber
August 11, 2020

Hello @Bruno Miretti (Deactivated). Frank Mueller (because he for some reason used the AXP/VAX Baremetal documenation for this) asked me to update the documentation to state that there is a problem with the full path name in the configuration. He wrote:
Quote: In the config file, the container name must be ".vtape" without the path.
set PKA container[600] = ".vtape" removable[600] = true (Works fine)
set PKA container[600] = "D:\vtapes\mka600.vtape" removable[600] = true (fails with badfilename errors)

I don’t know if this is a bug or a special situation he had. But since he mentioned he worked with you, I thought, I add this comment here….

 

Bruno Miretti (Deactivated)
August 17, 2020

Hi @W.Erber , to avoid confusion I will simply tell users to use “.vtape” only. I think specifying a name with full path makes no sense when CHARONCP is used.