RE: Virtualize USB Port Through IBM i

Jim,
That's also what I always do through the HMC.
I was just curious if anyone had ever attempted to virtualize it.

Larry,
Indeed, I see it as a Storage Resource on my hosting partition,
and anything I hook up there shows up fine in /QOPT on the host.

IBM responded to my ticket and said that it is not supported.
They suggested using image catalogs if I were attempting to
install a partition, but I'm curious if image catalogs will work
for installing RHEL. I'm going to try some scenarios on Monday
once I get into the office.

IBM Reference:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/installing-hosted-partition-image-catalog

Basically, RHEL 9 is too large for a single-sided dual-layer DVD,
and I'm making things more difficult on myself by not wanting
to allocate the USB resource to the client partition.

I was treating this as an exercise, but if I can't figure it out,
I'll just reallocate the resource to the client partition.

-------------
Jacob
-------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2024 6:09 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Jacob Banda <jnbanda@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Virtualize USB Port Through IBM i

I’ve always just moved the USB resource from the host to the client. Of course I think you need an HMC to do this and it can’t be required anywhere.


Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

On Aug 24, 2024, at 6:03 PM, Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Believe it or not I have never tried this.

But the thing is treated as an optical device so I wonder if you could add the device name to the NWSD and share it to a guest? My guess is this won't work but worth a try.

You should be able to share the directory it mounts but that's rather indirect.

- DrF

On 8/23/2024 5:56 PM, Jacob Banda via MIDRANGE-L wrote:
Has anybody ever virtualized the USB port on an IBM i hosting
partition to client partitions?
I see TAPE/OPTICAL just fine through my separate NWSD dedicated for
those devices.
But USB?
-------------
Jacob
-------------