OVM for sparc (formerly known as

LDOMs) explained Part 2 : Installation &

Configuration
October 1, 2012 by Sandeep patil Leave a Comment

In the last part I walked you through the basics of LDOMs .lets now dive into the installation
and configuration of LDOMs.The first thing you will need is a T-series hardware and OVM
for sparc software. The latest version is 2.2 , if you are going to use this version please go
through the hardware and software requirements as it does not support some old T-series
hardware and also old firmware levels.

Refer release notes for system requirements

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E35434_01/html/E23810/gentextid-
296.html#ldomsrequiredsoftwarepatches
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23120_01/html/821-2856/gentextid-295.html#scrolltoc
Once we the Operating system is ready with required patches and firmware level the
installation of OVM software can begin.Download the software zip file and unzip it.

# unzip p14054041_22_SOLARIS64.zip
# cd p14054041_22_SOLARIS64/OVM_Server_SPARC-2_2/Install
# ./install-ldm

Thats it and the OVM software is installed. pretty easy huh ! Now its time to reboot your
system and creating your control domain.

Creating Control Domain :

Fist step is to ensure all the required services required for LDOMs to work are online.

# svcs -a | grep ldom

online 12:32:11 svc:/ldoms/ldmd:default
online 12:32:11 svc:/ldoms/vntsd:default

svc:/ldoms/ldmd:default > service responsible for managing ldmd daemon which

communicates directly with hypervisor for configuration and management tasks.
svc:/ldoms/vntsd:default > service responsible for providing virtual network terminal
services through the vntsd daemon.

After the OVM software is installed all the resources in the server are by default assigned to
control domain.

# ldm list
Name State Flags Cons VCPU Memory Util Uptime
primary active -t-cv SP 256 128G 0.6% 1h 13m

As you can see all the 256 threads and 128 GB of memory is assigned to the control
domain.To create LDOMs some resources must be free and virtual serrvices
must be created. Now primary domain should be given atleast 4 VCPU and 4 GB of memory.
# ldm set-mau 1 primary
# ldm set-vcpu 4 primary
# ldm set-mem 4G primary

For these settings to take effect primary domain must be rebooted.But before that it is good
practise to configure the virtual services required to create the guest LDOMs.

1.VCC
for creating VCC service a range of TCP ports must be specified. The LDOM console can be
accessed through the port bound to it using telnet command.

# ldm add-vcc port-range=5000-5100 primary-vcc0 primary

where primary-vcc0 > is the VCC service name.

2.VDS
Only one VDS can be configure per control or service domain.All virtual storage devices are
serviced through VDS.

# ldm add-vds primary-vds0 primary

where primary-vds0 > is the VDS name

3.VSW
Thius service enables logical domains to communicate with physical network.Unlike VDS,
VSW is created for each network port we intend to use
for logical domains. We have 2 network ports which we are going to use for LDOMs.

# ldm add-vsw net-dev=e1000g0 primary-vsw0 primary

# ldm add-vsw net-dev=e1000g1 primary-vsw1 primary

Use below commands to check VCPUs and memory assigned to primary domain.

# psrinfo -vp
# prtdiag -v | grep -i mem

Check for the services

# ldm list-services

Configuring the First Guest Domain

First step is to create the doamin and then assign resources to it.

# ldm add-domain ldom1

# ldm add-vcpu 4 ldom1
# ldm add-mau 1 ldom1
# ldm add-memory 4G ldom1

here we have added 4 VCPU, 4GB memory and 1 MAU unit to the created LDOM.Now each
LDOM has its own instance of OBP.so we can configure the
standard variable as we configure on a standalone servers.

# ldm set-variable auto-boot\?=true ldom1

# ldm set-variable local-mac-address\?=true ldom1
# ldm set-variable boot-device=/virtual-devices@100/channel-
devices@200/disk@0 ldom1

Adding Storage to LDOM

Its now time to configure storage for the LDOM.you have 3 options in this case
1.local storage
2.SAN storage
3.Virtual Disk Images

Here I will show you all the three methods you can use any one out of these.

You can add a local ZFS volume

# ldm add-vdsdev /dev/zvol/datapool/datavol ldom1-vdsk1@primary-vds0
Or SAN disk
# ldm add-vdsdev /dev/dsk/c5t6460160B5634565675677677A81DB11d0s2 ldom1-
vdsk2@primary-vds0
Or create an image file and assign it
# mkfile 10g /var/tmp/disk01.img
# ldm add-vdsdev /var/tmp/disk01.img ldom1-vdsk3primary-vds0

Now the VDS device is added they must be assigned to the domain

# ldm add-vdisk ldom1-vdsk1 ldom1-vdsk1@primary-vds0 ldom1

After this we should configure virtual network ports and bind them VSW service.

# ldm add-vnet ldom1-vnet0 primary-vsw0 ldom1

# ldm add-vnet ldom1-vnet1 primary-vsw1 ldom1

Now you can have jumpstart installation of your LDOM or you can add the ISO image of
solaris 10 as vdisk in LDOM

# ldm add-vdsdev /var/tmp/sol10.iso iso@primary-vds0

# ldm add-vdisk iso iso@primary-vds0

Finally commit all the changes made by us

# ldm bind-domain ldom1

# ldm start ldom1
# ldm list
Name State Flags Cons VCPU Memory Util Uptime
primary active -t-cv SP 4 4G 0.5% 3h 2m
ldom1 active -t- 5000 4 4G 0.3% 3m

Now connect to the LDOM on port 5000 as seen in the above command
# telnet localhost 5000
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is ^].
Connecting to console ldom1 in group ldom1 ....
Press ~? for control options ..

{0} ok
On ok prom devalias will show the iso image we added as a disk. You can boot from this iso
as boot iso and start solaris 10 installation.

Now your first LDOM is ready with solaris 10 installed on it. If you liked the LDOM basics
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OVM for sparc (formerly known as LDOMs) explained Part 1 : The basics

OVM for sparc (formerly known as LDOMs) explained Part 2 : Installation & Con