Originally posted by: PontiacGeronimo

I want to have such "Any Partition / Any Partition slot" virtual SCSI adapter to be able map DVD image to any LPAR I want to map it to.

Originally posted by: Wouter Liefting

You're not using the right approach.

The connection between a vhost adapter (SCSI server adapter) and an AIX host vscsi (SCSI client adapter) is supposed to be a static one. The only reason you can set the server adapter to any/any in the HMC is that typically, at the time you do the VIO setup, the client LPARs are not configured yet so you can't link the server adapter to the client adapter just yet. But after you've configured the client adapter, you should go back to the server adapter and change its configuration from any/any to the proper client adapter. The fact that it works with any/any does not imply that that's a recommended configuration.

If you want the physical DVD to be used on various LPARs, your approach should be different. You setup a static SCSI server adapter/client adapter pair between the VIO server and each client LPAR, and you then use the mkvdev/rmvdev command to move the actual physical DVD device from one vhost to another. (Don't forget to do an rmdev -dl first on the AIX LPAR where you remove the DVD, and then a cfgmgr on the AIX LPAR where you added the DVD.)

An alternative approach would be not to assign the physical DVD to the VIO server, but assign the (IDE?) adapter to which the DVD drive is connected, directly to the LPAR using a DLPAR operation.

But having said that, I find that working with physical DVDs is very cumbersome. Have you ever investigated the Virtual Media Library? This way you copy the ISO images to the VIO server, and load them into virtual CD players as and when required. It is much, much more convenient compared to using physical DVDs and DVD drives.

Originally posted by: PontiacGeronimo

hello Wouter,

thx for your notes.

I do use virtual ISO repos on VIOS (since many years). Indeed, until now, I only used static mappings client-server vscsi adapters.

I had never need to use physical DVD drive (all do on ISOs, including zero setup of a new sever - installing VIOS from HMC nimol, etc.)

But here is something really strange - I can't explain why newly recreated virtual scsi adapter on server (so completely removed from VIOS - gone from hypervisor configuration, once when created again with the same slot ID is seen still used by old client, which in fact has no vscsi device anymore)

Let's say initially you have:

on VIOS: vhost0 (slot id 100, any/any)

on client LPAR1 (LPAR ID 5): vscsi0 (mapped to VIOS vscsi adapter in slot id 100 on VIOS)

All works fine.

Now, on LPAR1 system I did:

umount virtual drive

rmdev -dl vscsi0 -R

and from HMC dynamicaly unconfigured/removed the virtual (client) scsi adapter) successfully - cfgmgr does not configure vscsi0/cd0 on LPAR1 anymore.

Next, on the VIOS side I did:

unloadopt -release -vtd vtopt0

rmvdev -vtd vtopt0

rmdev -dev vhost0 -recursive

and dynamically unconfigured/removed the VIO server scsi adapter (slot ID 100) from hypervisor (cfgdev -dev vio0 does not configure it anymore - it was vhost0 and is gone)

And now the most interesting is, that when I add new server scsi adapter dynamically (reusing now free slot 100), new vhost0 is configured on VIOS but... is again seen mapped to LPAR ID5 (on lsmap -all) - and it is not true. I expected it is new server scsi adapter VIOS never used yet, besides the client LPAR ID has no VSCSI adapter anymore as was removed before so why VIOS says untruth?

Is it VIO software bug? Something is cheating VIOS?

Originally posted by: Wouter Liefting

I have no idea why the LPAR ID is retained even when it doesn't make sense anymore.

If this is a serious issue for you, talk to IBM and open a PMR. But it seems a pretty innocent bug to me.