HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration

device:scsi::VM Host storage specification
• VM Host storage specification defines where and how the virtual machine storage
is supplied on the VM Host. Specify it using the following format:
storage:location
Where storage is one of the following:
— disk
— lv
— file
— null
— attach
And location is a VM Host system file.
For complete information about constructing storage specifications for virtual machines, see
Section 7.2.2.1: “VM Guest Storage Specification” (page 81).
The type of VM Host backing store can affect the performance of the virtual machine. Use the
ioscan command to obtain information about the current device configuration on the VM Host
system, and try to distribute the workload of the virtual machines across the physical backing
stores.
When you share a physical backing storage device among virtual machines. potential conflicts
are not always obvious. For example, if you use a file in a file system on /dev/dsk/c8t2d0 as
a backing store, the raw device (/dev/rdsk/c8t2d0) cannot also be used as a backing store.
For more information about specifying virtual devices, see Chapter 7: “Creating Virtual Storage
Devices” (page 71).
Integrity VM checks the current physical configuration when you create a virtual machine using
the hpvmcreate command. If the virtual machine uses backing stores that are not available, the
virtual machine is created, and warning messages provide details. If you use the hpvmstart
command to start a virtual machine that requires physical resources that are not available on the
VM Host system, the virtual machine is not allowed to start, and error messages provide detailed
information about the problem.
After you create a virtual machine, you can use the hpvmmodify command to add, remove, or
modify storage devices for the virtual machine. To add a device to an exising virtual machine,
include the —a option, the same way you would on an hpvmcreate command. For example,
the following command modifies the virtual machine named compass1, adding a virtual DVD
device backed by the physical disk device /c1t1d2. The virtual hardware address is omitted
and will be generated automatically.
# hpvmmodify -P compass1 -a dvd:scsi::disk:/dev/rdsk/c1t1d2
You can modify storage devices while the virtual machine is running. It is not necessary to restart
the virtual machine; however, it may be necessary to rescan for devices on the virtual machine.
Some devices should be restricted to use by the VM Host and to each guest (for example, boot
devices and swap devices). Specify restricted devices using the hpvmdevmgmt command. For
more information about sharing and restricting devices, see Section 9.8.2.4: “Restricting VM Host
Devices” (page 130).
Any alternate boot devices should be set with the same care that you would use on a physical
system. If the primary boot device fails for any reason, a virtual machine set to autoboot attempts
to boot from devices in the specified boot order until either an option succeeds or it reaches the
EFI Shell. Make sure that any specified boot options, and the boot order, are appropriate for the
guest. For more information about the autoboot setting, see Table 3-2 (page 33).
32 Creating Virtual Machines