HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration

The amount of memory to allocate is the total of the following:
• The amount of memory required by the guest operating system. For example, the HP-UX
11i v2 operating system requires 1 GB of memory.
• The amount of memory required by the applications running on the guest.
The amount of memory should be at least the total of these two amounts. If there is not enough
memory in the current configuration, Integrity VM issues a warning but allows you to create the
virtual machine. This allows you to create virtual machines for future configurations. When the
virtual machine is started, the VM Host checks memory resources, including those allocated to
running guests, and makes sure that there is sufficient memory to run the virtual machine. In
addition to the amount of memory you specify for the virtual machine, the VM Host requires a
certain amount of overhead for booting the guest operating system. The amount of memory
allocated to all the running guests cannot exceed the amount of physical memory minus the
amount used by the VM Host for its operating system and its administrative functions. For more
information about the memory requirements of the VM Host, see Section 2.1: “Installation
Requirements” (page 21).
Guest memory allocation can be viewed and allocated dynamically (that is, without stopping
the guest) by using dynamic memory parameters, as described in Section 9.6: “Dynamic Memory”
(page 120).
3.1.6 Virtual Devices
Use the -a option to allocate virtual network switches and virtual storage devices to the virtual
machine. The VM Host presents devices to the virtual machine as “virtual devices.” Attached
I/O devices, such as tape, DVD burner, and autochanger, are not presented as virtual devices;
they are presented as direct I/O device. You specify both the physical device to allocate to the
virtual machine and the virtual device name that the virtual machine will use to access the device.
The following sections provide brief instructions for creating virtual network devices and virtual
storage devices.
3.1.6.1 Creating Virtual Network Devices
The guest virtual network consists of:
• Virtual network interface cards (vNICs)
• Virtual switches (vswitches)
For virtual machines to communicate either with other virtual machines or outside the VM Host
system, each virtual machine's virtual network must be associated with a virtual switch (vswitch).
If you start a virtual machine without a vswitch, the virtual machine has no network
communication channel. For each VM Host, a vswitch functions like a physical network interface
card (pNIC), accepting network traffic from one or more virtual machines and directing network
traffic to an associated port. A vswitch can be associated with a VM Host pNIC, or it can be local
to the virtual machines on the VM Host.
Integrity VM creates a vswitch named localnet by default. This network is not associated with
a pNIC. It is used only for communication between the guests running on the same VM Host.
For more information, see Section 8.2.1.1: “Local Networks” (page 101).
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:
30 Creating Virtual Machines