IBM pSeries Dlpar Operations- Basic How-tos

procedures needed to locate I/O slots that can be moved dynamically between logical partitions (LPAR) on a HMC managed system p server as as follows

- Identify the owner of the I/O slot for the device you need to managed and then logically remove the PCI device from the owning operating system. You have to find out the PCI device associated with the physical slot, for which you can execute following command in AIX

lsslot -c slot


In VIOS (virtual I/O server)
lsdev -slots

-- Removed the PCI device and all child devices

--- In AIX
rmdev -Rdl pci#

--- In VIOS
rmdev -dev pci# -recursive

- Perform the dynamic logical partition operation from the HMC

- Finally, configure the new device on the gaining partition

-- In AIX
cfgmgr

-- In VIOS
cfgdev

More detail about the typical dynamic logical partition procedures are available in the following references:

Partitioning Implementations
for IBM Eserver p5 Servers
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247039.pdf

An example would be

# lsslot -c slot
The output of this command looks similar to the following:
#Slot Description Device(s)
U1.5-P1-I1 DLPAR slot pci13 ent0
U1.5-P1-I2 DLPAR slot pci14 ent1
U1.5-P1-I3 DLPAR slot pci15
U1.5-P1-I4 DLPAR slot pci16
U1.5-P1-I5 DLPAR slot pci17 ent2
U1.5-P1/Z1 DLPAR slot pci18 scsi0

Before the I/O slot removal, you must delete the PCI adapter device and all its child devices from AIX. Given that ent2 in the slot U1.5-P1-I5 in the previous example is not used, the devices could be removed using the following command as the root user on the partition.

# rmdev -l pci17 -d -R

After the devices have been removed from AIX, the I/O slot can be
removed from the partition using the graphical user interface or command line interface on the HMC.

Note: Any PCI slots defined as required are not eligible for the DLPAR operation.

Procedures to use the HMC GUI to dynamically manage I/O slots can be found at following URL:

Dynamically managing physical I/O devices and slots
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/eserver/v1r3s/index.jsp?topic=/iphbl/iphbldlpariop.htm



How can I move my DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive from one LPAR to another?


Answer

If you don’t know which LPAR owns the CD-ROM drive, use the HMC manager or WEBSM tool.
Select the managed system and open “Properties”.
Select the “I/O” tab. Look for the I/O device with the description “Other Mass Storage Controller” and read the “Owner” field. This will show the LPAR currently owning that device.


ON THE SOURCE SYSTEM:

1. Find the parent adapter of the DVD or CD device:


$ lsdev -Cl cd0 -F parent
ide0

2. Find the slot containing the IDE bus:

$ lsslot -c slot
# Slot Description Device(s)
U787B.001.DNWG2AB-P1-T16 Logical I/O Slot pci1 ide0
U9133.55A.105C2EH-V7-C0 Virtual I/O Slot vsa0
U9133.55A.105C2EH-V7-C2 Virtual I/O Slot ent0
U9133.55A.105C2EH-V7-C3 Virtual I/O Slot vscsi0

so PCI1 is the slot containing the IDE adapter and CD drive.

3. Remove the slot from this host:

# rmdev -dl pci1 -R
cd0 deleted
ide0 deleted
pci1 deleted

ON THE HMC:

Select the LPAR currently owning the CD-ROM, and in the Actions menu select:
Dynamic Logical Partitioning -> Physical Adapters -> Move or Remove
Select the adapter for “Other Mass Storage Controller” and move to the desired target LPAR.
This will perform a DLPAR operation on both the source and target LPAR.

ON THE TARGET SYSTEM:

Log in as root and run
# cfgmgr

The CD-ROM device should show up now
# lsdev -C | grep cd
cd0 Available 1G-19-00 IDE DVD-ROM Drive

How to clear Amber ( Yellow ) Light on IBM POWER systems

This is one of the most common asked question from my customers:

There are only few steps to clear this false indicator , but before doing that you have to make sure that it is really a false alarm. You can do it by checking for latest errors in AIX error log . If there are no errors of Type P and Class H, then you can go for following steps

Type diag
Choose task selection
Choose indentify and attention indicators
Choose the indicator with the attention then choose set system
indicartor to normal