Version: 1 - Published: Sep 16, 2021 

Please review this document before proceeding with installation of Charon-AXP

In this document the terms Charon and Charon-AXP are used to refer to the products below:

• Charon-AXP/400 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Charon-AXP/2000 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Charon-AXP/4100 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Charon-AXP/DS10 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Charon-AXP/DS20 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Charon-AXP/ES40 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Charon-AXP/GS80 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Charon-AXP/GS160 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Charon-AXP/GS320 version 4.11 build 204-11 for Windows

• Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Standard and Datacenter Editions, 64-bit version

• Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Standard and Datacenter Editions, 64-bit version

• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter Editions, 64-bit version (please note that only R2 revision is supported)

• Windows 10 Professional and Enterprise Editions, 64-bit version

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP1) Standard and Enterprise Editions, 64-bit version (please note that only R2 revision is supported)

• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate (SP1) Editions, 64-bit version

• Windows 8.1 Professional Edition, 64-bit version

• VMware ESXi 5.5 and 6.x up to 6.7 (requires a supported Windows operating system on top of a ESXi virtual machine)

• Microsoft Hyper-V (requires a supported Windows operating system on top of a Hyper-V virtual machine)

• CPU requirements:

  • The number of available x86/x64 compatible (Intel or AMD) CPU cores in the hosting server should be at least 150% of the number of emulated CPU cores.

  • The recommended number of available (Intel or AMD) CPU cores in the hosting server is twice the number of emulated CPU cores.

  • Intel Xeon E-series v3 and above with a CPU clock frequency from 3GHz; to achieve the best performance use the latest Intel Xeon CPUs from the Scalable Processors family.

• Memory requirements:

  • DDR4 RAM 2133 MHz and above is recommended for optimal Charon performance.

  • The minimum host memory size depends on the amount of emulated AXP memory and on the number of Charon instances running on one host. The minimum host memory = (2Gb +  the amount of HP Alpha memory emulated) per Charon-AXP instance.

• Mid range and high end RAID controllers with at least 1GB cache with write-back enabled and battery backup option is recommended.
  (Using low-end RAID controllers may cause significant performance degradation and Charon-AXP crash. RAID5 and similar configurations are not recommended.)

• Intel HT (Hyper-Threading Technology) should be disabled on the hosting server.

• The hosting server should always run at full speed. Power management, USB power saving management and the screen saver should be disabled on the hosting server.

• Windows UAC should be disabled.

• The Port Group Security Tab containing the Charon network adapter(s) must be set to Promiscuous mode, MAC Address Change and Forged Transmit=Accept.

• Log file numbering implemented when log rotating is used: when starting the Charon emulator the first log file name will be like <configuration_name>-YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm-ss-xxxxxxxxx.log where xxxxxxxxx will be 000000000, this number will increase with each log rotation (ID#5702)

• The emulator UPTIME is reported on every log rotation (ID#5683, ID#32702)
  Example: 20210916:000000:INFO :0:00000479:ethane.cxx(3479): "ds10test" started at Wed Sep 15 17:28:14 2021 (uptime 0 06:31:46).

• Consolidating update to PBXGA: additional parameter "application", multi-screen support, 8bit graphics (ID#5589, ID#5609, ID#5692)

• Fixed Network Packet Driver installation issues / broken signature on pre-WIN10 installations (ID#5694)

• Fixed console hangup (ID#5695, Case 00032604)

• Consolidating update to PBXGA: various fixes including "Access is denied" (ID#5589, ID#5609, ID#5692)

• Charon license update is required before upgrading. Stromasys might request a HASP dongle state (c2v file) or a host fingerprint taken by HASP Update Service (which is included in the Charon kit) in order to issue a license update. Please refer to License Update Service for details

• Due to a Charon installation procedure update, if you upgrade from a version older than 4.8, it is required to uninstall all Charon products before installing Charon-AXP version 4.11. Please use the Windows Control Panel to perform the operation.

•  If you upgrade from version 4.8, 4.9, 4.10 or 4.11 (previous build):

  • It is not necessary to save boot parameters at the SRM level (console). Parameters will be kept.

  • It is mandatory to update all existing Charon Virtual Machines to make them run the latest version using the Virtual Machines Manager, VM Configuration tab.

• The following Microsoft Windows update has to be installed on Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 in order to support new Charon drivers signed with SHA2 signature:
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/SecurityAdvisories/2015/3033929

• If VMware is used, it must be upgraded to version 5.5, 6.0, 6.5 or 6.7.

• The Tru64 kernel might require a rebuild for some emulated AXP models that are included in the Charon-AXP/4100 product.

• It is recommended to archive the old Charon logs before starting the new version in order to avoid mixing character encoding in the log files.

• Intelligent packet processing should be switched off for the network adapters dedicated to Charon with "Network Control Center" (NCC) utility. Please refer to FTP, NFS, and general network issues with CHARON-AXP and CHARON-VAX on Windows for details.

• The user that runs Charon-AXP must have local administrator privileges and be a member of Charon-GRP group (which is created during the Charon installation).

• Charon executables, libraries and data (disk container files) files should be excluded from all the antivirus checks, including on-the-fly checks and scheduled scans.

• HT (Hyper-Threading Technology) should be disabled on the hosting server.

• Power management, USB power saving management and screen saver should be switched off on the hosting server.

• The Charon-AXP configuration file should be reviewed if migrating from Charon-AXP for Linux. Linux specific configuration parameters (for example, network adapter references) should be changed to Windows specific parameters. Please refer to the user manual for details.

• Please note that the actual network communication speed and mode are determined by the Windows network speed and mode settings.

• If Charon-AXP is being moved to another hosting platform and direct SCSI access method is used to access some SCSI devices, the new hosting platform SCSI drivers should support the SCSIport method. If drivers supporting SCSIport method are not available, direct SCSI access cannot be used. This is a case for all Windows Server 2012 (R2) and Windows 8.1 systems, and is often seen for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 (R2) systems. The recommended workaround for disk access is to use the \\.\PhysicalDriveX method.
  If any other SCSI device is involved, please contact Stromasys. Charon-AXP for Linux can be considered to work around the limitation.

• For network connections, interface="connection:..." syntax is preferred in the Charon configuration file.

• The packet_port keyword in the Charon configuration file can be used on any hosting platform instead of the platform specific keywords ndis5_chpack_port and ndis6_chpack_port.
  For example, the Charon configuration file lines:

  load ndis5_chpack_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="..."

  and

  load ndis6_chpack_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="..."

  can be replaced with:

  load packet_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="..."

• For the emulated network adapters the communication speed and mode is recommended to be commented out (set to automatic). If it is necessary, see the example below:

  load DE500BA/dec21x4x EWA interface=EWA0 load packet_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="..." set EWA adapter_mode="100BaseT-FD"

• On VMware, legacy_mode should be set in the Charon configuration for emulated AXP network adapters if Promiscuous mode cannot be set (this solution does not work in multi-instance configurations).

• The console definition syntax has been changed in the configuration file starting with v4.9. Please read the User's Guide for instructions on how to apply it if you currently use a Charon version prior to v4.9.

• If "IDLE" utility is going to be used, perform the following commands after its installation:

  $ @sys$startup:charoncp_startup $ charoncp set idle /enable