Implementing POWER Linux on IBM System i Platform

Implementing POWER Linux on IBM System i Platform

by Yessong Johng, Erwin Earley, Rico Franke, Vlatko Kosturjak
Released February 2007
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

This IBM Redbooks publication is about POWER Linux implementation on the IBM System i platform. With the brand-new technologies of POWER5 and IBM Virtualization Engine, POWER Linux on i5 is even more powerful, scalable, and flexible. We also have new versions of Linux distributions that are available for POWER Linux on IBM System i platform. They are SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4.

This book gets you ready to plan, configure, and install Linux on System i platform. It provides information about setting up a network connection between the server i5/OS partition and the client Linux partition over virtual LAN using various methods. It also covers various topics of administration, operations, and tips and techniques.

Table of contents

  1. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  2. Preface
    1. The team that wrote this redbook
    2. Become a published author
    3. Comments welcome
  3. Chapter 1: Introduction to Linux on System i platform
    1. Concepts and terminology
      1. System i platform
      2. Hardware management console (1/2)
      3. Hardware management console (2/2)
      4. Virtual Partition Manager (VPM)
    2. Brief introduction to Linux and Linux on System i platform
      1. Linux on System i platform
    3. Differences between existing Power5-based System i and previous System i models
      1. Linux enhancements on Power5 / Power5+
    4. Where to go for more information
  4. Chapter 2: Configuration planning
    1. Concepts and terminology
      1. Processor concepts
    2. Virtual I/O versus direct I/O
      1. Virtualization and the virtualization engine
      2. Virtualization engine (VE) platform technologies
      3. Virtualization engine platform services
      4. Direct I/O
      5. Virtual I/O versus direct I/O
      6. Typical implementation scenarios
      7. Virtual I/O server
    3. Planning for resource allocation
      1. Processor
      2. Memory
      3. I/O adapter (1/2)
      4. I/O adapter (2/2)
      5. Network configuration
    4. Planning for virtual I/O
      1. Considerations for virtual I/O scenarios
      2. Hardware requirements for a Linux logical partition
    5. Planning for direct I/O
      1. Considerations for direct I/O scenarios
      2. Hardware requirements for a Linux logical partition
    6. Planning for hybrid scenarios
      1. Considerations for hybrid scenarios
      2. Hardware requirements for a Linux logical partition
    7. Planning for VPM
    8. Power control and console options
      1. Power control
      2. Linux console options
  5. Chapter 3: Creating logical partitions
    1. Concepts and terminology
      1. Logical partitions
    2. Linux partition with all virtual resources via HMC
      1. Creating the logical partition (1/6)
      2. Creating the logical partition (2/6)
      3. Creating the logical partition (3/6)
      4. Creating the logical partition (4/6)
      5. Creating the logical partition (5/6)
      6. Creating the logical partition (6/6)
    3. Linux partition with all virtual resources via Virtual Partition Manager
      1. Removing resources from i5/OS (1/2)
      2. Removing resources from i5/OS (2/2)
      3. Defining new Linux partitions
      4. Recovering configuration data
    4. Linux partition with virtual disk and native network via HMC
    5. Linux partition with all physical resources via HMC
      1. Creating the logical partition (1/3)
      2. Creating the logical partition (2/3)
      3. Creating the logical partition (3/3)
  6. Chapter 4: Creating the storage environment
    1. Supporting virtual I/O
      1. Network server description (NWSD)
      2. Network Storage Space
    2. Native storage (1/2)
    3. Native storage (2/2)
      1. Starting Rescue Mode
      2. Formatting the disks
      3. Building the RAID Set (1/2)
      4. Building the RAID Set (2/2)
  7. Chapter 5: Creating the network support
    1. Networking with physical interfaces
    2. Networking with virtual interfaces
      1. Adding virtual Ethernet adapter to i5/OS partition
      2. Creating the Ethernet Line Description in i5/OS
      3. Enabling datagram forwarding
      4. Proxy ARP
      5. Network Address Translation (1/3)
      6. Network Address Translation (2/3)
      7. Network Address Translation (3/3)
      8. Other approaches
  8. Chapter 6: Linux installation
    1. Console access
      1. Console access via the Hardware Management Console
      2. Console access via i5/OS
    2. Basic Linux installation steps
      1. Novell / SUSE SLES 10 (1/5)
      2. Novell / SUSE SLES 10 (2/5)
      3. Novell / SUSE SLES 10 (3/5)
      4. Novell / SUSE SLES 10 (4/5)
      5. Novell / SUSE SLES 10 (5/5)
      6. Red Hat RHEL 4 (1/5)
      7. Red Hat RHEL 4 (2/5)
      8. Red Hat RHEL 4 (3/5)
      9. Red Hat RHEL 4 (4/5)
      10. Red Hat RHEL 4 (5/5)
      11. Installation of Linux on POWER Utilities
    3. Native disk install - installation notes
    4. Updating SLES 9 to SLES 10 (1/2)
    5. Updating SLES 9 to SLES 10 (2/2)
  9. Chapter 7: Administrating the Linux environment
    1. Checking Linux partition resources
      1. From HMC
      2. From Linux OS
    2. Linux utilities
      1. YaST for SUSE
      2. Red Hat Setup
      3. PuTTY
      4. VNC
      5. Webmin
      6. WinSCP
    3. Backup and recovery
      1. Backup strategy for Linux partition
      2. i5/OS oriented backup (1/3)
      3. i5/OS oriented backup (2/3)
      4. i5/OS oriented backup (3/3)
      5. Linux-oriented backup (1/2)
      6. Linux-oriented backup (2/2)
      7. i5/OS oriented restore
      8. Linux-oriented restore
  10. Chapter 8: Leveraging virtualization for specific requirements
    1. Adding space
    2. Increasing size of storage space
      1. Optional - Rename Storage Space
    3. Adding additional storage spaces
    4. Setting up Logical Volume Manager
      1. Creation and allocation of virtual disk
      2. Setting up the initial LVM environment
      3. Making the volume available to Linux
    5. Increasing the size of LVM
      1. i5/OS steps
      2. Preparing the disk for LVM usage
  11. Appendix A: Virtual CD library
    1. Virtual CD device creation
    2. Virtual CD library creation
    3. Loading images into CD library
    4. Working with CD library
  12. Appendix B: Setting up Linux on iSeries models
    1. Freeing up system resources (1/3)
    2. Freeing up system resources (2/3)
    3. Freeing up system resources (3/3)
  13. Appendix C: Performance considerations
    1. Virtual I/O support
      1. Multi-path I/O
      2. Memory pool
    2. Virtual network
      1. Frame size
      2. Multiple network segments to separate internal/external traffic
      3. Proxy ARP versus Network Address Translation
    3. Processor considerations
      1. Virtual processors
      2. Uncapped partitions
      3. Dedicated processors
    4. Summary
  14. Appendix D: Troubleshooting
    1. Virtual I/O - network server configuration issues
    2. Attempt to vary on fails - partition not found
      1. Attempt to vary on NWSD fails - SCSI server resource definition problem
      2. Vary on NWS fails - host partition not defined
      3. File system error accessing stream file
      4. Inability to access the Linux console through i5/OS virtual console support
      5. Virtual console access denied (through i5/OS) - console in use
      6. Inability to access Linux console (via HMC) - console in use
      7. Partition fails to start - resource conflict
      8. Inability to open Linux console in WebSM
      9. Linux does not shutdown when the network server is varied off
      10. An RPA communication error occurs when a DLPAR operation is attempted
  15. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. How to get IBM Redbooks
    5. Help from IBM
  16. Index (1/2)
  17. Index (2/2)
  18. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: Implementing POWER Linux on IBM System i Platform
  • Author(s): Yessong Johng, Erwin Earley, Rico Franke, Vlatko Kosturjak
  • Release date: February 2007
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: None