HP vPars and Integrity Virtual Machines V6.1 Administrator Guide

Traffic from an AVIO guest LAN network device is directed to the pNIC directly by a separate host
module rather than by the vswitch. You can create vswitches before or after creating guests that
access the vswitches. If you create the virtual machine before creating the vswitch, the virtual
machine is created and warning messages display the specific problem. This allows you to create
virtual machines for future configurations.
To create a vswitch, enter the hpvmnet -c command. Include the -S option to specify the name
of the virtual switch. For example:
# hpvmnet -c -S vswitch-name -n nic-id
where:
• vswitch-name is the name you assign to the vswitch. You must specify the name of the
vswitch.
• nic-id is the pNIC ID on the VSP. If you omit the nic-id, the vswitch is created for the
localnet.
To start the vswitch, enter the hpvmnet -b command. For example:
# hpvmnet -b -S vswitch-name
For more information about using the hpvmnet command, see Section 10.2.1 (page 144).
To create the virtual machine and allocate the vswitch to it, use the -a option to the hpvmcreate
command. For example:
# hpvmcreate -P vm-name -a network:adapter-type:[hardware-address]:vswitch:vswitch-name
where hardware-address (optional) is the vNIC PCI bus number, device, and MAC address.
If you omit the hardware address, it is generated for you. HP recommends that you allow this
information to be automatically generated. In this case, omit the hardware-address value from
the command line, but retain the colon character separator. For example:
# hpvmcreate -P vm-name -a network:adapter-type:vswitch:vswitch-name
The adapter-type is avio_lan.
On the guest, use standard operating commands and utilities to associate the vNIC with an IP
address, or use DHCP just as you would for a physically independent machine.
By default, vswitches are sharable; you can allocate the same vswitch to multiple virtual machines.
The hpvmnet command displays the status of the vswitches, including the mode. The vswitches
are always in SHARED mode.
Virtual LANs allow virtual machines to communicate with other virtual machines using the same
VLAN, either on the same VSP or on different VSP systems. You associate the VLAN port number
with a vswitch, then allocate that vswitch to virtual machines that communicate on that VLAN. For
more information about HP-UX VLANs, see the manual Using HP-UX VLANs.
NOTE: If the guest is configured with a number of VLAN devices, but it does not have sufficient
memory, some of the devices might be missing after the guest is booted. To resolve this issue,
increase the size of the guest memory with the hpvmmodify -r command.
For more information about creating and managing VLANs on virtual switches, see Section 10.4
(page 152).
7.1.10.2 Creating virtual storage devices
When you create a virtual machine, you specify the virtual storage devices that the virtual machine
uses. Virtual storage devices are backed by physical devices on the VSP system (backing stores).
The VSP system must have storage for the VSP and for all of the virtual machines.
Use the -a option to create and allocate the virtual device to the virtual machine. For example:
# hpvmcreate -a VM-guest-storage-specification:VM-Host-storage-specification
where:
7.1 Specifying virtual machine characteristics 81