User's Manual
Table Of Contents
- HP Process Resource Manager User Guide
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Overview
- 2 Understanding how PRM manages resources
- 3 PRM configuration planning
- 4 Setting up PRM
- 5 Using PRM with HP System Management Homepage (SMH)
- 6 Using PRM with HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM)
- 7 Configuring and enabling PRM on the command line
- Quick start to using PRM’s command-line interface
- Configuring PRM
- The PRM configuration file
- Configuration tips and requirements
- Specifying PRM groups/controlling CPU resource use
- Controlling memory use
- Controlling applications
- Specifying PRM users
- Assigning secure compartments to PRM groups
- Assigning Unix groups to PRM groups
- Checking the configuration file
- Loading the PRM configuration
- Enabling resource managers
- Updating the configuration
- 8 Fine-tuning your PRM configuration
- 9 Administering PRM
- Moving processes between PRM groups
- Displaying application filename matches
- Displaying netgroup expansions
- Displaying accessible PRM groups
- Displaying state and configuration information
- Displaying application and configuration information
- Setting the memory manager’s polling interval
- Setting the application manager’s polling interval
- Disabling PRM
- Resetting PRM
- Monitoring PRM groups
- Logging PRM memory messages
- Logging PRM application messages
- Displaying groups’ allocated and used resources
- Displaying user information
- Displaying available memory to determine number of shares
- Displaying number of cores to determine number of shares
- Displaying past process information
- Displaying current process information
- Monitoring PRM with GlancePlus
- Monitoring PRM with OpenView Performance Agent (OVPA) / OpenView Performance Manager (OVPM)
- Automating PRM administration with scripts
- Protecting the PRM configuration from reboots
- Reconstructing a configuration file
- Special case of interest: Client/server connections
- Online cell operations
- Backing up PRM files
- A Command reference
- B HP-UX command/system call support
- C Monitoring PRM through SNMP
- D Creating Secure Resource Partitions
- E Using PRM with Serviceguard
- F Using PRM with HP Integrity Virtual Machines
- G PRM error messages
- Glossary
- Index
1 Overview
This chapter introduces the basic concepts and functions of HP Process Resource Manager. It covers:
• “What is HP Process Resource Manager? ” (page 11)
• “Why use HP Process Resource Manager? ” (page 13)
What is HP Process Resource Manager?
Process Resource Manager (PRM) is a resource management tool used to control the amount of
resources that processes use during peak system load (at 100% CPU resource or 100% memory
resource). PRM can guarantee a minimum allocation of system resources available to a group of
processes through the use of PRM groups.
A PRM group is a collection of users and applications that are joined together and assigned certain
amounts of CPU and memory resource. The two types of PRM groups are FSS PRM groups and
PSET PRM groups. An FSS PRM group is the traditional PRM group, whose CPU entitlement is
specified in shares. This group uses the Fair Share Scheduler (FSS) in the HP-UX kernel within the
system’s default processor set (PSET). A PSET PRM group is a PRM group whose CPU entitlement
is specified by assigning it a subset of the system’s cores (PSET). (A core is the actual data-processing
engine within a processor. A single processor might have multiple cores. A core might support
multiple execution threads.) Processes in a PSET have equal access to CPU cycles on their assigned
cores through the HP-UX standard scheduler.
PRM has four managers:
CPU (processor time) Ensures that each PRM group is granted at least its allocation of
CPU resources. Optionally for FSS PRM groups, this resource
manager ensures no more than its capped amount of CPU
resources. For PSET PRM groups, processes are capped on CPU
resource usage by the number of cores assigned to the group.
MEM (memory) Can manage both private memory and shared memory.
• For private memory:
Ensures that each PRM group is granted at least its share, but
(optionally) no more than its capped amount of memory. You
can also specify memory shares be isolated so that a group’s
assigned memory shares cannot be loaned out to, or
borrowed from, other groups.
• For shared memory:
Ensures a PRM group is allocated a minimum number of
megabytes for use as shared memory.
APPL (application) Ensures that specified applications and their child processes run
in the appropriate PRM groups.
The managers control resources, user processes, compartment processes, and applications based
on records in the configuration. Each manager has its own record type. The most important records
are PRM group/CPU records, because all other records must reference these defined PRM groups.
The various records are described below.
Group/CPU Specifies a PRM group’s name and its CPU allocation. The two types of PRM
group records are FSS PRM group records and PSET PRM group records. An
FSS PRM group is the traditional PRM group, whose CPU entitlement is specified
in shares. This group uses the Fair Share Scheduler (FSS) in the HP-UX kernel
within the system’s default processor set (PSET). A PSET PRM group is a PRM
group whose CPU entitlement is specified by assigning it a subset of the system’s
What is HP Process Resource Manager? 11