Installing and Managing HP-UX Virtual Partitions (A.01.01)

How vPars Works

Partitioning Using vPars

Chapter 2 25

information on the commands, see the chapter “Monitor and Shell

Commands” on page 71.

Partition Database

At the heart of the vPars monitor is the partition database. The

partition database contains partition conﬁguration information. Using

the partition database, the monitor tracks which virtual partitions exist

and what hardware resources and partition attributes are associated

with each partition.

When the monitor boots (see “Boot Sequence” on page 26), it reads a

copy of the partition database from a ﬁle, by default /stand/vpdb, on the

same disk from which the monitor /stand/vpmon is booted. Then, the

monitor creates a master copy of the vPars partition database in the

memory reserved by the monitor.

The operating system of each partition also keeps a local copy of the

partition database in a ﬁle, by default /stand/vpdb, on its local boot

disk.

You can create, modify, and view the database contents using vPars

commands at the UNIX shell level. See “Monitor and Shell Commands”

on page 71. Because the format of the database is proprietary, you must

use only vPars commands to create, modify, and view the database.

Whenever you execute a vPars command from the UNIX shell of a

partition, the change is made ﬁrst to the monitor’s master copy. Then,

the operating system from which you executed the command updates its

local copy from the master copy. Every ﬁve seconds, the operating system

of each running partition automatically updates its local copy from the

master copy. This synchronization ensures that the partitions and

changes to the partition database are preserved when the entire

computer is rebooted.

NOTE The monitor can only synchronize to the database ﬁles of running

partitions. If you reboot the computer, you should boot the monitor from

the boot disk of a partition that was running during your most recent

partition conﬁguration change.