Description

In case of unrequested Charon virtual machine stop, it is possible, using the systemd features, to restart Charon emulator automatically

Step-by-step guide

Additional considerations:

To perform this procedure, you must have the necessary privileges to handle systemd service and execute systemctl commands.
This documentation applies only to Linux distributions including the systemd feature. This does not apply to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Setup your CHARON virtual machine as a service. To do so, refer to the corresponding documentation or install and use the Charon Linux Toolkit.
.
Edit the service configuration file and add the following parameters:
More parameters can be defined for auto-restart. Please refer to your Linux distribution documentation (see Links further)
.
Example: The following service will restart in case of failure (Restart=on-failure) after 30 seconds (RestartSec=30) with a limit of 2 (StartLimitBurst=2) within 10 minutes (StartLimitInterval=600)
.
Reload systemd manager configuration:

Notes

Autoboot

Restarting Charon emulator does not mean booting the OpenVMS or Tru64 virtual system. You will need to setup the flags at SRM level for autoboot.

See the related documentation of your emulator

Charon-AXP

The default boot device and the action to be performed on boot have to be set

Example for Charon-AXP:

P00>>> set bootdef_dev dka0
P00>>> set auto_action restart

Charon-VAX

CHARON-VAX can be configured to automatically boot an operating system at start up.

The MicroVAX 3100, VAX 6310 and VAX 4000 models boot automatically if the correct boot flags are set at the VAX console level:

>>>set halt reboot

Please check that the TOY, EEPROM and ROM containers (see above) are enabled so the console changes are saved upon reboots.

The ROM of certain VAX models (MicroVAX II, MicroVAX 3600, MicroVAX 3900, VAXserver 3600 and VAXserver 3900) does not allow the SRM console to accept the above command to enable auto booting. As a workaround, a specific setting can be defined in the configuration file:

set bdr boot=auto

The Charon-VAX 6000 models have a similar configuration setting:

set xmi boot=auto

Restart limit reached

In case the StartLimitBurst is reached during the interval, you will not be able to restart the service until you reset the failure counter.

Example:

Charon Linux Toolkit integration

The Charon Linux Toolkit, starting version 41, is able to manage the auto-restart

Starting with kit version 42, if auto-restart settings are defined they will be displayed in the virtual machines lists while navigating in the menu options and the failure counter will be reset on each start (from the menu)