Version: 10 - Published: Mar 10, 2026  

Table of Contents

Please review this document before proceeding with the installation of Charon-AXP for Linux.

The Release Notes apply to Charon-AXP for Linux to version 4.12, up to build 210-15.

Products included in the Charon-AXP version 4.12 for Linux

In this document the terms Charon and Charon-AXP are used to refer to following Charon products to be run on a Linux Charon host system:

• Charon-AXP/400

• Charon-AXP/2000

• Charon-AXP/4100

• Charon-AXP/DS10

• Charon-AXP/DS20

• Charon-AXP/ES40

• Charon-AXP/GS80

• Charon-AXP/GS160

• Charon-AXP/GS320

Supported software platforms

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Oracle Linux 7.x to 9.x (64-bit)

• Rocky Linux 8.x and 9.x (64-bit)

• CentOS 7.x  (64-bit)

• Hypervisors: VMware ESXi 5.5 – 8.0; Microsoft Hyper-V; KVM (require a supported Linux operating system running in the virtual machine).
  Note that prerequisites of additional products may limit the choice of hypervisors. For example, a VE license server VM requires VMware ESXi 6.5 or higher. Please refer to the appropriate documentation.

Please note: for CentOS 7, a connection to the Internet is required to install the glibc.i686 package which is not included in the Standard distribution DVD. If there's no connection available, please use the "Everything" distribution DVD.

Hosting hardware requirements and configuration recommendations

• 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 and the screen saver should be disabled on the hosting server.

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

New functionality

• Support of VE (Virtual Environment) licensing. For more information see Virtual Environment (VE) License Server Documentation

• Support for EL9 (RHEL9, Rocky Linux 9, Oracle Linux 9)

• New packaging: installation kits are distributed in self-extracting shell archives that require agreeing to the EULA (End User License Agreement) when the archive is unpacked.
  To unpack, use the command: sh <archive-name>.

Problems fixed and other changes

Build 210-15

• Updated with new End-User-License-Agreement (Version 24 February 2026).

• Fix implementation of network packet ports so that to correctly process spurious signals and prevent network connectivity loss due to abnormal termination of I/O processing threads (ID#5895).

• Include the lockdev package as a prerequisite for the Charon emulator RPMs. The installation of this package ensures the that directory /var/lock/lockdev exists. Without this directory, the emulator logs errors similar to the following:

  | 20250919:...:hexane.cxx(1811): (2) No such file or directory: - | session unable to write to "/var/lock/lockdev/." | 20250919:...:hexane.cxx(1832): (13) Permission denied: - | session unable to write to "/var/lock/."

Build 210-14

• Support for VE license expiration date in countdown license (ID#5871).

• Fixed AlphaServer GS320 emulator crashing with 32 CPUs (ID#5861). No crashes occur if number of CPUs < 32.

• Change the grace period for HASP-based licenses to the license check interval + 1 hour - but preserve a minimum of 12 hours as the default (ID#5856).  This replaces the fixed value of 12 hours.

• Fix PCI I/O BYPASS to eliminate error messages similar to: "pci_io_byp( 437): DUA: Container name '' is not valid" (ID#5854).

• Reinstate the baud configuration parameter for serial lines (ID#5849). The parameter was mistakenly removed causing compatibility issues and error messages similar to:
  COM1: Parameter "baud" not found.
session: Failed to configure COM1.
session: ... at line 18, file ...

Build 210-13

• Fix EISA configuration table in emulator to eliminate Tru64 UNIX on boot (ID#5844). Relevant for AlphaServer 2000/2100.

Build 210-12

• Fix for AXP CPU emulation to avoid CPU halts due to KERNEL STACK NOT VALID exceptions, followed by CPUSANITY or CPUSPINWAIT BUGCHECKs in case of AXP configurations with more than one CPU or more than 4GB of RAM (ID#5836).

Build 210-11

• Update Stromasys End User License Agreement (EULA) to version issued on 16 February 2024.

Build 210-10

• Updated End User License Agreement (EULA) text.

Build 210-09

• Products have been rebuild with updated license libraries (VE_LSI 1.0.1) to log a message should there be a certificate mismatch between license server and the emulator host (ID#5799).

Build 210-08

• Fix emulation of DIGI AccelePort multiplexors and host PCI bridges of various AXP chipsets so that DIGIDRIVER_7 can correctly recognize and initialize the PBXDA board running on OpenVMS 7.1 (ID#5787).

• Fix packaging self-extracting archives. Force use of AES encryption to avoid warning (WARNING: message was not integrity protected) on product installation (ID#5792).

Build 210-07

• Updated End User License Agreement (EULA) text (ID#5782).

Build 210-06

• New End User License Agreement (EULA) text (ID#5782).

Build 210-05

• Add logging an error message indicating syntax error in storage container specification.  Previously, such errors were quietly igored or the affected devices were set to offline (ID#5766).

• Fix EW network boot (MOP) of virtual AlphaServer 800 (ID#5773).

Build 210-03

• Kit packaging process was corrected to avoid corruption of HASPVLIB shared object files, which provide support for software license (SL) (ID#5748).

• Kit packaging process was corrected to provide correct version of NCU script and utility that are best suited for EL9 (ID#5751).

Build 210-02

• A fix has been provided to kgpsa_generic_storage module to avoid repeating Invalid argument errors in log files (ID#5742).

• A fix has been provided to kgpsa_generic_storage module to avoid failed to query next port errors in Charon-AXP Console (ID#5746).

• A fix has been provided so that log flush period is correctly maintained during initial license acquisition. With this fix, a failure to acquire license at startup is reported with (periodic) log flush rather than on emulator exit due to missing license (ID#5747).

Build 210-01

• Dependencies for the Charon-AXP/VAX RPMs have been changed so that charon-license and aksusbd modules are not required (ID#5743). This assumes that a VE license sever will be deployed. For HASP licensing, the two packets must be installed.

• Fix default handling of SIGPIPE signal to prevent abnormal termination of emulator process on reception of the signal (ID#5744).

Build 210-00

• The processing of the following HASP licensing errors was changed such that the emulator will no longer terminate immediately but instead observe the grace period (ID#5717):

  • HASP_SHARING_VIOLATION (HASP runtimer error code 84)

  • HASP_DEVICE_ERR (HASP runtime error code 43)

  • HASP_SCOPE_RESULTS_EMPTY (HASP runtime error code 50)

• Default identification of FC attached virtual disks ($1$DGAxxx drives attached through KGPSA) has been changed to "DEC HSG80" following the hardware original (ID#5731).

• Emulation of the TOY has been fixed to provide correct synchronization of the guest's time when it is intentionally set to a time in the past (relative to the host) (ID#5737).

Configuration changes required when upgrading from previous version(s) or migrating from Windows platform to version 4.12 on Linux

• A 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 installation for details.

• Uninstall any installed version of Charon-AXP before installing the new version.

• If VMware is used, it must be upgraded to a supported version.

• 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 log files before starting the new version in order to avoid mixing character encoding in the log files.

• Charon-AXP cannot be started remotely via ssh, telnet, VNC, etc., if a local HASP dongle is used. Please use the Charon Linux Toolkit. Alternatively, network dongle or network software license, including software licenses, can be used. Another option is to configure Charon-AXP as a Linux service/daemon manually. See "Running as system service" chapter for details on how to configure Charon-AXP as a service/daemon.

• Intelligent packet processing should be switched off for the network adapters dedicated to Charon with "Network Configuration Utility" (ncu) utility. Please refer to FTP, NFS, and general network issues with Charon-AXP and Charon-AXP on Linux for details.

• Linux Xterm does not provide the full functionality of a VT100 terminal by default. Please refer to the user manual for the details of setting up the mode for emulating VT100.

• The Charon-AXP configuration file should be reviewed if migrating from Charon-AXP for Windows. Windows specific configuration parameters (for example, network adapter references) should be changed to Linux specific parameters. Please refer to the Charon-AXP V4.12 for Linux user's guide for details.

• Charon executable files, 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 and screen saver should be switched off on the hosting server.

• Please note that the actual network communication speed and mode are determined by the Linux network speed and mode settings. This feature is required to avoid network timeouts in VMS and Tru64 during the negotiation phase.

• The console definition syntax has been changed in the configuration file starting with v4.9, please read the user's guide.

• If "IDLE" utility is going to be used, please refer to the Charon-AXP for Linux user's guide for details.

Notes related to upgrade from previous version

• A Linux server reboot is highly recommended after uninstallation of the previous version of Charon and a reboot is also highly recommended after 4.12 kit installation,

• Software licenses have to be renewed as they are not compatible with previous versions (prior to 4.11) even if your software license was 4.11 ready.
  Error code 78 (HASP_SECURE_STORE_ID_MISMATCH) may appear while trying to read the license content if the software license has not been updated.

Known restrictions of version 4.12

Despite the fact that Charon is already optimized for a wide range of the guest OS tasks, there may be some situations (for example OpenVMS compilation tasks) when a performance degradation of about 50% compared to version 4.8 may occur. In this case the following solutions can be applied:

1. Enlarging ACE cache size

Try this solution first. It is recommended to enlarge the ACE cache size at least in 2 times as it is shown in the following example:

If this solution does not work for the specific guest OS tasks, apply also the next solution.

2. Setting specific ACE host options

Set the following set of options in the configuration file:

where <N> is number of the I/O CPUs dedicated to Charon. If this value is not set (the default value is used) it is recommended to specify it explicitly.

Other restrictions:

• BOOTP and booting from tape are not currently supported.

• The total number of devices (both controllers and units, including disks) displayed by the Charon SRM console is 48. However, more devices are available to VMS and Tru64. Note that it does not affect the actual number of configured devices provided to the Charon Guest OS.

• The Charon emulated console supports only 80 symbols in one line.

• CD-ROM cannot be configured as "/dev/cdrom" for IDE CD-ROM (ID#3042).

• In some specific situations, the virtual disks descriptions can be displayed as "Virtual SCSI Disk (C)SRI" in SRM console. This problem does not affect Charon functionality (ID#4729).

• Hardware partitioning is not supported by Charon. However the same hardware layout can be emulated with multiple Charon instances on the same host.

• If Charon is mapped to a physical CD-ROM it may be displayed as a "Virtual CD-ROM" in Charon SRM console. It happens due to some restriction of the Linux CD-ROM interface ("dev/sr", "/dev/scd", "/dev/cdrom") - it does now allow to query actual peripheral identification (SCSI Vendor ID / SCSI Product ID). The workaround is:
  - Usage of the "media_type" parameter in configuration file. See the User's Guide for more information.
  - Usage of the SCSI Generic Interface ("/dev/sg<N>") rather than the CD-ROM ("dev/sr<N>", "/dev/scd<N>", "/dev/cdrom") interface. (ID#4564).

• PCI Passthrough KGPSA emulation may not work correctly if physical FC PCI adapter shares PCI interrupt line with any other PCI module(s).

• Emulated FC is not supported on Digital Unix 4.0. Therefore, the installation of Digital UNIX 4.0 fails when FC is configured (ID#3191).

• Physical tapes and generic SCSI devices currently do not work. The patch will be released as soon as the problem is fixed.

• Charon-AXP does not emulate the LSI 53C810 SCSI controller. Charon-AXP emulates the Qlogic KZPBA SCSI controller, which is the reason that the earliest supported VMS version is 6.2-1H3, and earliest supported Tru64 version is 3.2. If the driver for KZPBA is installed on an earlier version of VMS or Tru64 before system transfer to Charon-AXP, it will function on Charon-AXP (ID#2291).

• Non fatal "ERRFMT BUGCHECK" message may appear on boot from a backup disk created by Charon-AXP. This message does not affect OpenVMS normal startup (ID#3123). See this article for more: Input issues with telnet.

• By default the layout of the right part of the PC keyboard is not mapped to the layout of the VT100 keyboard. Use a special script created by Geoff Kingsmill. Run this script, then run Charon-AXP normally. (ID#3030).

• Telnet to the Charon-AXP console is only supported in CHAR mode. LINE mode is not supported. To enable CHAR mode interactively, connect to Charon-AXP via telnet and press Ctrl-]. Then issue the command mode char to enable character mode. Alternatively, you can add the command to your .telnetrc file.

• A "CRC error" may occur when running the command "BACKUP/LIST/REW MKA100:..." on OpenVMS Alpha Version 8.4. This problem can also be observed on AXP hardware (ID#2925).

• There is no DE500-BA device driver for OpenVMS 6.2-1H3. VMS patches are necessary in order to support the DE500-BA device with the emulator models AS1200/AS4000/AS4100 (ID#3091). The VMS 6.2-1H3 patches for these models are: 
  ALPBOOT12_062
  ALPLAN06_062
  ALPCLUSIO01_062
  ALPCPU1603_062 (is CPU specific for AS4100. Please check VMS patch documentation for relevant patches for other Alpha models).

• The DE500-BA device error count will be equal to 1 on OpenVMS 8.2/8.3. It has no negative effect on VMS boot and operations (ID#2963).

• Performance tests may in some cases cause VMS 6.2-1H3 to hang on an emulated AS400. The exact circumstances are as yet unknown.

• Network speed auto negotiation works with some restrictions (see the table below). It is always recommended to use full-duplex mode on the emulator host.

• The firmware does not support the command recall using the up/down arrow keys.

• The VMS 7.x Monitor utility shows the maximum CPU quantity instead of actually configured quantity. It is a VMS 7.x restriction and does not apply to VMS 8.x.

• Microsoft Windows for Alpha is not supported on Charon-AXP.

• Use of IDE is limited to ATAPI CDROM on the host machine. No iSCSI support is planned for IDE. UETP may produce error messages if IDE emulation is used.

• Emacs hangs if the OPA0 console is used. Emacs works fine over an SSH connection.

• Please note that Charon-AXP has not been tested with SAN attached storage volumes over 2TB in size.

• Tru64 environment monitoring should be disabled. It could cause Tru64 version 5.x shutdown with the message: "system fan has failed, system is shutting down now". If installing Tru64 from scratch, do not install envmon package.  If it is already installed, disable automatic startup by booting into SINGE USER mode and issue the following commands:

  then "exit" (Ctrl-D) to multi user mode.

• CharonCP utility issues (see user's guide for more information about how to use the utility):

  • When IDLE is enabled, CPU seems to lose timer interrupts.

  • The IDLE installation utility does not seem to correctly enable the IDLE upon completion of installation.

New functionality introduced in previous versions

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-13

• Feature Request: incoming connection requests are by default filtered for virtual serial lines and then allowed only for the localhost. This is to avoid security scanners that can block the port, OPA0 console mainly. To allow other hosts to connect to the virtual line, add the "set OPA0 access_control = disable" line in the configuration file (ID#5707). Please note: this requires to use the new syntax to define OPA0. Please read the user's guide "Console" chapter.

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-11

• 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)

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-10

• Added support for 8-bit depth on PBXGA (ID#5667)

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-09

• Sentinel Runtime upgraded to version 8.13.

• Implemented support for booting AXP emulators via MOP. MOPv3 (DECnet) and MOPv4 (LANCP) are supported. Both EW and EI adapters are supported for MOP network boot.

• Implemented serial line logging capability for serial lines attached through virtual PBXDA (DIGI board).

• New parameter "connection_override" for console that allows new connection to override existing connection, if any.

• Remote management console feature added. Its purpose is to let the emulator trigger actions on the Charon host to properly unload and save a vtape container while the guest operating system is running.

• PBXGA graphic adapter is able to change the graphic console screen size, for example: "load PBXGA GYA size = 800x600" (ID#5583).

• New version of PuTTY, supporting "-title" option (ID#5590).

• To facilitate online log monitoring by third-party tools, the log file (session or OPA0) is flushed on disk regularly. Interval for periodic flush to be supplied through configuration file (optionally) (ID#5532).

• Charon executable files print a summary of options on "-h" or "--help" command line option (ID#5578).

• The parameter "log_flush_period" is available on all serial line implementations (ID#5633).

• The parameter "port_enable_mac_addr_change" is available on Linux version of Charon as well (ID#5594).

• Sample configuration files are updated (ID#5246, #5622).

• Special version of NCU (Network Configuration Utility) is included with Linux products for RHEL8.

New functionality introduced in version 4.10 build 202-03

• DEC ZLXp-E1 PCI Graphics Adapter (based on DECchip 21030 PCI Graphics Accelerator) is supported, Charon provides a virtual console for displaying graphics (ID#5092).

• LP8000 (KGPSA) is now supported over SG3 (Linux SCSI generic) interface (on RHEL and CentOS 7.x only) (ID#5378).

• AlphaStation Soundcard (PCXBJ) is supported on Tru64 UNIX (ID#5412).

• Linux bonding adapters are supported (ID#4750).

• Charon stability is improved (ID#5483, 5331).

• LTO-6 Tape support is improved (ID#5391).

• Kernel version and System release are included to the log (ID#5393).

• Log is flushed regularly and asynchronously to facilitate online LOG monitoring by third-party tools (ID#5532).

• VMware Ethernet adapters: in addition to the E1000, E1000E and VMXNETx adapters are now fully supported.

• Copyright notes are updated in all sample configuration files (ID#5399).

• Licensing mechanism is improved (ID#5375, 5458, 5459).

• Network License management processing changes (ID#4631).

• hasp_srm_view output is improved (ID#5392).

• "ncu" utility is improved (ID#5404).

New functionality introduced in version 4.9 build 194-02

• To address security issues, new Sentinel LDK 7.6 is used for building this release; most up-to-date Sentinel run-time (v7.63) is included (ID#5211, ID#5227).

• Network performance and stability has been significantly improved (ID#5111, ID#4987).

• Built-in serial lines (OPA0 and TTA0) have been re-considered and alternative implementation is provided to resolve multiple issues (ID#4844, Case #00028691).

• USB physical drive support is improved (ID#3323).

• BYPASS disks support is improved (ID#4999).

• Deep queuing of disk I/O requests is implemented (ID#3144).

• Audio Interface for AlphaStation (for models AS400, DS10, DS15) is implemented (ID#4717).

• Virtual PBXDA serial lines controller is implemented (ID#4776).

• DS15 and DS25 preloaded network adapter model (EW* or EI*) can be specified (ID#4886).

• New feature for the AXP emulator SRM console has been implemented to allow booting Tru64 from SAN volumes having no UDID (ID#5238).

• Guest-to-guest communication over virtual SCSI bus is implemented (ID#5044).

• Soft limit on the required host CPU number is set according to the "n_of_cpus" parameter (ID#5137).

• User part of Charon configuration (set by CFG file) is reflected in the log (ID#5156).

• Some improvements of the messages in the log (ID#5356).

• Minor update in Charon logs on Linux: kernel version and system release are added (ID#5393).

• Hard-coded host system limits are replaced with limits encoded in the license's memory block (ID#3263).

• Hard-coded upper limit on license check interval to 168 hours is increased (ID#5031, Case #00029470).

• New configuration options "license_use_any_key" and "license_id" are implemented (ID#5289).

• Should Charon lose access to its license, the product now offers a longer grace period and more frequent intermediate checks.

• RPM script is improved for update process (ID#5139).

• hasp_srm_view is improved (ID#5027, ID#5214, ID#5243, ID#5304, ID#5322).

• TapeUtil (CharonCP) is improved (ID#3589).

• NCU is improved (ID#5133, ID#4950).

New functionality introduced in version 4.8 build 183-02

• Performance is improved (ID#2381, ID#3144).

• HASP libraries have been upgraded (ID#4709, ID#4450).

• All the libraries are linked statically (ID#4710).

• Instruction scheduling is updated with Ivy Bridge and Haswell tables (ID#4619).

• Preserving console saved state across product upgrades is implemented (ID#4782).

• PCI I/O Bypass controller is available. It allows to specify disk controllers as DI<x>, DR<x> and DU<x>, where x is selected according to VMS naming scheme (ID#4786).

• The default log mode has been set to "append" in the configuration templates (ID#4752).

• Updated CFG template files copyright message to year 2016 (ID#4720).

• CFG template files are updated to provide correct examples for "hw_model", "system_name", "architecture" and "dsrdb" parameters (ID#4697).

• Loop devices ("/dev/loop0") support as the storage containers is implemented (ID#4908).

• Field Test and Production builds offer identical functionality (ID#4552).

• One license can serve Charon instances on one host or different hosts by choice (ID#4884).

• Software License transfer feature is disabled (ID#4787).

• This release is available on RHEL 6.x x64 as well (ID#4894).

• CentOS 7.x is now supported.

• Fedora support has been removed.

• "Charon.service" template is introduced instead of the old "Charon" template (ID#4968).

• NCU supports VLAN configuration (ID#4857).

• Tape Utilities package is added (ID#3589).

• The "-key <key-ID>" option (when generating a C2V file using the "-c2v" option) is implemented in "hasp_srm_view" utility. This option is required if more than one license is visible. (ID#4965).

New functionality introduced in older versions

• VMware ESXi 6.x

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x

• Please note that RHEL 6.x is not supported.

• Charon binaries are linked statically since this release. Charon-AXP and Charon-AXP can be installed on the same host (ID#4710).

• The Charon Linux Toolkit is included in the distribution. It is a set of text based menu and utilities to simplify Charon operational procedures and provide Guest to Host communication channel.

• All emulated AXP models are installed by default. Allowed AXP models are controlled by Charon license (ID#4711).

• General performance improvement up to 10% for some usage scenarios (ID#4474).

• Internal Charon-AXP performance counters for various subsystems (CPU, DIT, Network I/O, and Disk I/O) may be streamed to the Charon log file. The log has to be sent to Stromasys for analysis (ID#4141).

• MPIO storage path support is implemented (ID#4328).

• Write-through caching of virtual disks is implemented; it can be set with a parameter "use_io_file_buffering = write-through".  By default it is switched off. (ID#4613).

• VLANs are supported (ID#4401).

• Sample configuration files are updated with correct values for "hw_model", "system_name", "architecture" and "dsrdb" parameters (ID#4697).

• The log file language is set to English (ID#4509).

• Charon log file format switched to UTF-8 (ID#4188).

• Rotating log file switch can be configured to be triggered by maximum file size and time period (ID#4639).

• Charon console log rotation has been implemented (ID#4639).

• Software licensing (SL) is available. Software license is bound to physical system hardware components or virtual machine hardware components (ID#4344).

• Network licensing is available, for both hardware dongles (requires special dongle) and software licensing.

• Charon instance counter on a Network license switched to instance mode from station/instance mode, which allows Charon instances to be spread around the network at user convenience. For example, a Network license with 6 Charon instances allows to run 3 instances on a first hosting server, 2 instances on a second hosting server, and one instance in a third hosting server. In the previous versions of Charon Network license controlled number of hosting systems and Charon instances per host system.

• Charon license check order can be managed via configuration file, Production and Backup license IDs can be specified (ID#4249).

• Software License can be relocated to another host.

• New parameter "license_key_lookup_retry" has been introduced allowing to set a number of license retries with specified time interval for the license checks on Charon startup (ID#4399).

• License protection run time package (Sentinel) has been upgraded to the current stable version (ID#4209, 4711).

• Please note that Charon HASP runtime environment is customized by Stromasys. Environment downloaded directly from SafeNet would not provide full functionality (specifically, Software Licensing will not work). Stromasys will maintain and distribute HASP environment updates as Charon product patches if necessary.

• MTD utility supports SCSI Passthrough mode for tapes without Linux driver (ID#3927).

• Charon utilities fully support mixed encoding in log files (ID#4642, 4646).

• Network Configuration Utility (NCU) compatibility with supported OS versions has been improved, functionality extended (ID#4530, 4563, 4454).

• hasp_srm_view utility can display either a particular license or all available licenses (ID#4618).

• mkdskcmd utility does not allow to reduce vdisk size (ID#4506).

• DS10 emulator included into Charon-AXP/DS10 (ID#4176).

• PCI Pass Through support for FC is implemented (ID#2467).

• Physical PCI Fiber Channel presentation mode is supported (ID#4294).

• PCI-to-PCI bridges are implemeted (ID#4428).

• PCI device multifunction is fully supported (ID#4007).

• Charon's interface for external diagnostic data collection is implemented (ID#4385).

• Statistics counters for storage and network subsystems are implemented (ID#4141).

• CPU state transition (HALT <-> RUN) is logged with indication of reason for that (ID#4264).

• Several ways of TOY synchronization to Charon host are available (ID#4144).

• CPU IDLEing for SMP Alpha emulators is available (ID#4169).

• "hasp_view" is updated to allow managing SL licenses (ID#4172).

• EI device support - DE602 (Compaq NC3131) adapter is implemented (ID#4185, 4293).

• HALT command for Charon-AXP SRM console is implemented (ID#4239).