How to install and configure ldom or oracle vm server for SPARC

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How to install and configure LDOMs (Oracle VM for SPARC)

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Virtualization has been a need of time over several past years as we have machines now even with 16 cores and
memory in TBs. A single machine is now capable of accommodating even more than 100 VMs at a time. Oracle
VM for SPARC formerly known as LDOMs has played a key role in oracles virtualization strategies and is
improving with every version. Before start configuring our first oracle VM for SPARC let us understand types of
ldoms, ldom services and virtual devices.

Types of logical domains

Name

Purpose

Guest

No direct access to underlying hardware and does not provide virtual device or services to other
ldoms. Uses virtual device.

I/O

has direct access to underlying hardware in the server. It can be used in cases like oracle DB which
wants direct/raw access to the storage devices.

Service

provides virtualized devices and services to guest domains.

Control

Service domain that also runs the ldoms manager software to control the configuration of
hypervisor. This ldom manager is responsible for mapping between physical and virtual devices.

Virtual Services and Devices

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Abbreviation

Name

Purpose

VLDC

virtual logical domain

channel

communication channel between logical domain and hypervisor

VCC

Virtual console
concentrator

Acts as a virtual console for each logical domain

VSW

Virtual switch service

provides network access for guest ldoms to the physical network

ports

VDS

virtual disk service

provides virtual storage service for guest ldoms

VCPU

virtual CPU

Each thread of a T series CPU acts as a virtual CPU

MAU

Mathematical arithmetic
unit

Each core of T series CPU will have a MAU for accelerated

RAS/DSA encryption

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How to install and configure ldom or oracle vm server for SPARC

Memory

http://thegeekdiary.com/how-to-install-and-configure-ldoms-o...

Physical memory is mapped into virtual memory and assigned to

ldoms

VCONS

Virtual console

a port in guest ldom that connects to the VCC service in control

domain

VNET

Virtual network

network port in guest ldom which is connected to the VSW service

in the control domain

VSDEV

Virtual disk service

device

physical storage device that is virtualized by VDS service in control

domain

VDISK

Virtual disk

VDISK in guest domain is connected to the VDS service in control

domain/service domain

Installing the OVM software

To install the LDOM software simply unzip the software zip and run the install-ldm script with -s option in case
you dont want to use the configuration assistant to configure the primary and guest ldoms.

primary # unzip OVM_Server_SPARC_latest.zip

primary # ./install-ldm -s

Creating the default services

Create the essential services like vsw, vcc and vds required to serve the guest LDOMs.
primary# ldm add-vcc port-range=5000-5100 primary-vcc0 primary
primary# ldm add-vds primary-vds0 primary
primary# ldm add-vsw net-dev=nxge0 primary-vsw0 primary
primary# ldm list-services primary
VDS
NAME

VOLUME

OPTIONS

DEVICE

primary-vds0
VCC
NAME

PORT-RANGE

primary-vcc0

5000-5100

NAME

MAC

primary-vsw0

02:04:4f:fb:9f:0d nxge0

VSW
NET-DEV

DEVICE

MODE

switch@0

prog,promisc

Initial configuration of the control domain

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How to install and configure ldom or oracle vm server for SPARC

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By default all the VCPUs, Memory and MAUs are assigned to the primary domain which is the default domain
created after installing the OVM for SPARC software. Primary or control domain is used to configure all the guest
ldoms and provide necessary virtual services to them like vcc, vsw and vds. Logical domain manager is
responsible to create, delete, modify and control ldoms, thus make sure the ldmd service is running before
configuring the primary and guest domains. Use delayed reconfiguration in order to configure the primary ldom
without rebooting for previous changes to take effect.
primary# svcs -a | grep ldmd
online 14:23:34 svc:/ldoms/ldmd:default
primary# ldm set-mau 1 primary
primary# ldm set-vcpu 8 primary
primary# ldm start-reconf primary

(delayed reconfiguration)

primary# ldm set-memory 4G primary

primary# ldm add-config new_config
primary# ldm list-config
factory-default
new_config [current]

Reboot the primary domain for configuration settings to take effect

primary# shutdown -y -g0 -i6

Enable networking between primary and guest domains

By default communication between control domain and all the guest domains is disabled. To enable it, virtual
switch has to be configured as the network device instead of nxge0.
primary# ifconfig nxge0 down unplumb
primary# ifconfig vsw0 plumb
primary# ifconfig vsw0 192.168.1.2 netmask + broadcast + up
primary# mv /etc/hostname.nxge0 /etc/hostname.vsw0

Enable virtual network terminal server daemon

The vntsd daemon is responsible to provide the virtual network terminal services to the guest ldoms. If this
service is not running enable it with svcadm command.
primary# svcadm enable vntsd
primary# svcs vntsd
STATE

STIME

FMRI

online

Oct_12

svc:/ldoms/vntsd:default

Setting up the Guest Domain

We would assign 8 VCPUs, 2 GB of memory and 1 MAU to our first guest ldom. Also a virtual network vnet1 will
be created and associated with the virtual switch vsw0.
primary# ldm add-domain ldom01
primary# ldm add-vcpu 8 ldom01
primary# ldm add-memory 2G ldom01
primary-domain# ldm set-mau 1 ldom01
primary# ldm add-vnet vnet1 primary-vsw0 ldom01

Adding storage to the guest domain

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How to install and configure ldom or oracle vm server for SPARC

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Here we first need to specify the physical device that needs to be exported by vdsdev to the guest domain and
then we actually add the virtual disk thus created to the guest domain. Now use any one of the 3 methods
mentioned below.
1. Adding physical disks
primary# ldm add-vdsdev /dev/dsk/c2t1d0s2 vol1@primary-vds0
primary# ldm add-vdisk vdisk1 vol1@primary-vds0 ldom01

2. Adding file
primary# mkfile 10g /ldoms/ldom01_boot
primary# ldm add-vdsdev /ldoms/ldom01_boot vol1@primary-vds0
primary# ldm add-vdisk vdisk1 vol1@primary-vds0 ldom01

3. Adding a volume
primary# zfs create -V 5gb pool/vol01
primary# ldm add-vdsdev /dev/zvol/dsk/pool/vol01 vol1@primary-vds0
primary# ldm add-vdisk vdisk1 vol1@primary-vds0 ldom01

Setting variables
Setup the boot environment variable for the guest ldom.
primary# ldm set-var auto-boot?=true ldom01
primary# ldm set-var boot-device=vdisk1 ldom01

Setting up the solaris ISO image for installing guest ldom

Now we can also do a jumpstart installation of the guest domain. But one of the easiest and most widely used
method is add iso image as virtual disk to the guest ldom and install it from it. Here you can access the vdisk
sol10_iso in the ok prompt and boot from it.
primary# ldm add-vdsdev options=ro /data/sol_10.iso iso@primary-vds0
primary# ldm add-vdisk sol10_iso iso@primary-vds0 ldom01

Bind and start installing the ldom

primary# ldm bind ldom01
primary# ldm start ldom01
LDom ldom01 started
ok> devalias
ok> boot sol10_iso

Connect the guest domain

Now check the port which is bound with the guest domain and connect the virtual console of the guest domain.
primary:~ # ldm list
NAME

STATE

FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME

primary active -n-cv

ldom01

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SP

active -n--- 5000

4G

0.3% 8h 46m

2G

48% 1h 52m

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How to install and configure ldom or oracle vm server for SPARC

http://thegeekdiary.com/how-to-install-and-configure-ldoms-o...

primary# telnet localhost 5000 Trying 127.0.0.1...

Connected to localhost.
Escape character is ^].
Connecting to console "ldom01" in group "ldom01" .... Press ~? for control options ..

Flag definitions
Now you can see various flags in the ldm list command output. The falgs represent the current state of the
ldom.
column 1

column 2

column 3

s starting or stopping
- placeholder

n normal
t transition

d delayed reconfiguration
- placeholder

column 4

column 5

column 6

c control domain
- placeholder

v virtual I/O service domain

- placeholder

s source domain in migration

t target domain in migration
e error occurred in migration
- placeholder

Other useful Commands

View current version of Oracle VM server for SPARC software
primary# ldm -V

Long listing of domains

primary# ldm list -l

List the resource for all LDOMs and per LDOM

# ldm list -o cpu primary
# ldm list -o network,memory ldom01

List the boot variables

# ldm list-variable boot-device ldg1
boot-device=/virtual-devices@100/channel-devices@200/disk@0:a

List the bindings of all the LDOMs

# ldm list-bindings ldom

List all server resources, bound and unbound.

# ldm list-devices -a
# ldm list-devices mem

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How to install and configure ldom or oracle vm server for SPARC

http://thegeekdiary.com/how-to-install-and-configure-ldoms-o...

Filed Under: LDOMs

Tagged: IO domain, LDOMs, primary domain, service domain

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Related Posts
LDOMs (OVM for SPARC) Command line reference [cheat sheet]
How to create an I/O domain
How to save LDOM configuration and restore from xml file
How to reset LDOM configuration to factory default
LDOM live migration basics explained

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MEET THE GEEK

India based Unix Admin, Cloud Evangelist
and a Virtualization lover. I am Sandeep

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How to install and configure ldom or oracle vm server for SPARC

http://thegeekdiary.com/how-to-install-and-configure-ldoms-o...

Patil. I work as a Unix Administrator and

love playing around with Solaris and various
other virtualization and HA solutions.
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Sandeep P
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@patilsandeep911

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