Re: Creating an LPAR - the continuing saga......

So I THINK a missed step is that OOTB as you say machines with one partition have a checkbox set to "Power OFF when last partition is shut down."

On your HMC go to "All Systems > Your machine > General Settings."

Under the 'General Properties' the very last item is that checkbox noted above. Remove that checkmark. (And be sure to SAVE!)

Now when you power down your IBM i partition it should not go away because the SERVER will remain running even though the partition is down. I think this is the cause of your puzzlement!!

- Dr F

On 1/22/2021 4:18 PM, Pete Helgren wrote:

OK.  Gotten quite a bit of help here but I am not quite there yet on getting this guy off the ground.  I had a "default_profile" for my IBM i partition which was the OOTB setting. That one partition owned all of the resources.  I wanted to free up at least 1/2 the memory for my planned Linux LPAR.  So I created a new LPAR called IBMi and allocated just about everything to it except I only gave it half of the available memory (of 32GB).  So I ended up with an IBM i partition with 16GB memory.  That was about the only change from the "default_profile" it came with (I added two SCSI virtual adapters but that isn't an issue). My now issues fall into two general areas:

Problem #1: The disappearing partition

Setting the default profile to the new profile.  Under manage profiles in the vHMC I chose the new IBMi profile as default. When I view the profiles I have under manage profiles, I see two: default_profile and IBMi.  IBMi has "Default profile" listed next to it.

With that in place I shut down the partition.  It then disappeared from the vHMC "Resources --> ALL Partitions" list (odd eh?) However, if I look at "Resources-->All Systems-->"Server-9009-41a-..."-->Partitions over on the left hand pane is a "Partitions" block.  It shows [1] but there isn't a way to display it. So the partition appears to be there but there is no way to see it or access it's properties (at least, AFAICS)

Problem #2:  Default profile doesn't seem to be the default

When I started the system back up, the partition once again appeared in the vHMC "Resources --> ALL Partitions" list. Awesome, except it is there with 32GB RAM rather than 16GB.  Its like the profile that is flagged as the default profile, IBMi, didn't default...

So, when the partition came back, I took a look again at the manage profiles option on the "All Profiles" panel.  The IBMi still shows that it is the "Default Profile".  If I take the option to "Change default profile" the only option is to change it back to the "default_profile" I started with.

But, here is the interesting part: If I click on the serial number below the IBM i image, I am taken the "General Properties" page of the partition (breadcrumb shows "Resources-->All Partitions-->[my IBM i serial number]-->General properties) I am immediately presented with a panel that says "Apply partition Configuration  The partition or Virtual I/O server has not been activated. A profile will need to be applied before managing the partition."  It allows me to choose a profile but then when I hit "OK" it says: "Error.....cannot be performed in a running state...must be in the Not Activated state to perform operation".   ARRGHHH.  Uh, yeah,  but how do I get to "Not Activated" since shutting it down makes it disappear? OY!  Stuck in a loop.  Can't seem to find it when it is shut down but has to be inactive in order to set a partition to active...

It really can't be this hard.  Admittedly the HMC options change based on how you access the pages on the vHMC but how would I make the running partition inactive without shutting it down? I can't see any other way to do it...and if I can't inactivate it, I can't activate the new profile and if I can't activate the new profile I can't create a Linux partition, which is what I am after....sigh...