Partition Manager (parmgr)
As an alternative to performing all of our work at the command line we could have used the graphical tool parmgr. parmgr, with a full path of /opt/parmgr/bin/parmgr, can be used to perform most nPartition-related functions. Figure 17-1 shows the main parmgr screen:
Figure 17-1. parmgr Main Screen
The left side of the parmgr screen shows the first nPartition (P1), the second nPartition (sddev), Available Resources,and Empty components. When one of these is selected, its details are shown in the right window. P1 is selected in the left window so we see its components in the right window. Note that only cell0-4 are part of P1 because we removed cell7 from it earlier at the command line.
Next let's select sddev in the left window which will show its details in the right window as shown in Figure 17-2:
Figure 17-2. parmgr Highlighting sddev
You can see that cell5-6 are part of this nPartition that we had earlier created at the command line.
Next, let's select Available Resources in the left window, which will display available components in the right window as shown in Figure 17-3:
Figure 17-3. parmgr Showing cell7 Available
We could easily modify sddev to include cell7 in the Modify Partition window shown in Figure 17-4:
Figure 17-4. parmgr Adding cell7 to sddev
You can see in Figure 17-4 that we could add cell7 to this nPartition or remove one of the existing cells from sddev. All of the work we performed at the command line earlier in this section could be easily performed with parmgr. As with most UNIX functions, I first wanted to show the command line means of performing some functions and then the graphical means of doing so. parmgr is so easy to use compared to the command line, most users prefer it over the command line.
The next section covers the Management Processor, which helps perform low-level functions. This is very important to know, because on a big system such as a Superdome complex, there are many levels and interfaces to work with that are covered in the next section.