Version: 1 - Published: Aug 28, 2024 

Table of Contents

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

Products included in Charon-VAX 4.11 build 204-22 for Linux

In this document the terms Charon and Charon-VAX are used to refer to all the Charon-VAX for Linux products below:

Supported software platforms

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x - 64-bit

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x - 64-bit

• Linux CentOS 8.x - 64-bit

• Linux CentOS 7.x - 64-bit

• VMware ESXi 5.5 and 6.0 up to 6.7 (requires a supported Linux operating system on top of a ESXi virtual machine)

For CentOS, 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 VAX memory and on the number of Charon instances running on one host. The minimum host memory = (2Gb +  the amount of VAX memory emulated) per Charon-VAX 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-VAX crash. RAID5 and similar configurations are not recommended.)

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

• 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

None.

Problems fixed

• None; Charon-AXP bug fixes only.

Configuration changes required when upgrading from previous version(s) or migrating from Windows platform to version 4.11

• A Charon license update is required. 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-VAX before installing the new version.

• If VMware is used, it must be upgraded to version 5.x, 6.0, 6.5 or 6.7.

• 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-VAX cannot be started remotely via ssh, telnet, VNC, etc. if a local HASP dongle or a local software license is used. Please use Charon Linux Toolkit. Alternatively, network dongle or network software license can be used. Another option is to configure Charon-VAX as a Linux service/daemon manually. See "Running as system service" chapter for details of how to configure Charon-VAX 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-VAX 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-VAX configuration file should be reviewed if migrating from Charon-VAX for Windows. Windows specific configuration parameters (for example, network adapter references) should be changed to Linux specific parameters. Please refer to the "Charon-VAX V4.11 for Linux - User's Guide" for details.

• 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 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 VAX/VMS during the negotiation phase.

• The extension of the kfddb.cfg file, used to load extra pair of DSSI port on some VAX models, and kzdda.cfg file, used to load optional SCSI controller on some VAX models, has changed to .icfg. Existing configuration files have to be updated.

• If you have any troubles with physical SCSI tape drives mapped to Charon, it is recommended to change the corresponding instance name to "virtual_scsi_tape", for example, the original configuration

  load physical_scsi_device pka_5 scsi_bus=pka scsi_id=5
set pka_5 container="/dev/sg3"

  
  must be changed to
  load virtual_scsi_tape pka_5 scsi_bus=pka scsi_id=5 set pka_5 container="/dev/sg3"

Note 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 4.11 kit installation (some issues found with licenses detection)

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

Known restrictions of version 4.11 build 204-22

• Network booting is supported with exception of VAX6xxx models.

• IDLE works only once, right after CharonCP installation. As soon as VMS reboots, host CPU utilization returns to maximum and does not drop until VMS shutdown (ID#5343).

• In VAX-6310 UETP test fails if it runs from tape (ID#1942).

• CharonCP SET MAGTAPE utility does not support TQK50/TUK50 controllers (ID#5398).

• In certain situations, where several Charon VMs are running on one host with DSSI cluster configured, Charon may hang up if load on the nodes is very high (ID#5426).

• MicroVAX II emulator may hang on booting MDM (ID#3382).

• CharonCP SET MAGTAPE utility does not support TQK50/TUK50 controllers (ID#5398).

• Standalone backup is not bootable on MicroVAX3600 and MicroVAX II (ID#1870).

• CHAPI is not supported by this build. An attempt to load CHAPI component leads to failure: "Failed to create an instance of the component chapi" (ID#5414).

• Sometimes VAX 6310 does not boot guest OS. The workaround is to restart the emulator (ID#5384).

• Sometimes OpenVMS 7.2 freezes on booting. The workaround is to restart the emulator (ID#5396).

• A segmentation violation in module NCR53C94 may very rarely occur. If that happens, please provide Charon configuration and log files to Stromasys (ID#4633).

• CMS commands may slow down due to a its internal design. STROMASYS provides (on request) a special OpenVMS utility to solve the problem (ID#4651).

• Charon cannot correctly define the total number of available CPUs on multi CPU groups systems (NUMA architecture, etc) - it reports only a number of the CPUs found in its first group. This problem will be fixed in future releases.
  As a workaround, enable "Node interleaving" in the BIOS (if available) to make the BIOS report the total number of available CPUs (as a part of one consolidated NUMA group) to the operating system.
  For example, on HP Proliant servers, the configuration sequence is the following:
  - Boot the server, press F9 and enter BIOS setup.
  - Select "Advanced Options" -> "Advance Performance Tuning Options" -> "Node Interleaving", set it to "Enabled".
  - Boot Linux

• If a network cable is disconnected, Charon-VAX might not detect that link is down (ID#4318).

• Unexpected exception (SCB + 004) machine check may happen on a VAX 4000 Model 700/705 under certain rare conditions (ID#4242).

• Charon-VAX does not emulate graphical adapter. Applications hard-coded to use graphical hardware as their own interfaces may not function correctly.

• 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 ( http://www.decuslib.com/decus/freewarev50/decxterm/decxterm ). Run this script, then run Charon-VAX normally according to instructions in the Users's Guide. (ID#3030).

• By default, a telnet session to the Charon-VAX console port does not support ESC sequences of a VT100. To enable this open xterm, connect to Charon-VAX and press "Ctrl-]" once connected then issue the "mode char" command to enable character mode. If it is also required to map the right part of the keyboard correctly, use the xterm started by Geoff Kingsmill's script (see above). (ID#3030). See this article for more: Input issues with telnet.

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