The following steps describe how to live migrate a VM using the Novalink command line.

 

In this example, I want to move the VM named “xwing” from FRAME1 to FRAME2.

 

I will use the “pvmctl vm migrate” command to achieve this outcome.

 

$ pvmctl vm migrate help

usage: pvmctl [help | --help] LogicalPartition migrate {--object-id | -i} <LogicalPartition field>=value {args}

 

optional arguments:

 

--mgmt-usr MGMT_USR The user ID to use on the target PowerVM management

platform.

 

--timeout TIMEOUT Maximum number of seconds for job to complete. If not

specified, will not timeout.

 

--sys SYS The name of the managed system to migrate to.

 

--validate Indication of whether to just validate the migration or

actually perform it. Default: False.

 

help arguments:

help show this help message and exit

--help show this help message and exit

 

identifier arguments:

--object-id id=value, -i id=value

Identifier used when querying for an object type. Specified as a name=value pair. Example: --object-id name=value

 

required arguments:

 

--mgmt-svr MGMT_SVR Required. The IP of the PowerVM management platform

managing the target host.

 

The source and destination machines and Novalink partition details are:

 

Source Machine = FRAME1

Source Novalink IP = 10.1.1.17

Destination Novalink IP = 10.1.1.16

Destination Machine = FRAME2

 

Prior to the live migrate (LPM), I configure SSH communication between the padmin accounts on both the source and destination Novalink partitions. This is accomplished using the “pvmctl sys add-auth-key” command.

 

$ pvmctl sys add-auth-key help

usage: pvmctl [help | --help] ManagedSystem add-auth-key {args}

required arguments:

 

--key KEY The new authorized public key to be added, if it does

not already exist.

identifier arguments:

--object-id id=value, -i id=value

Identifier used when querying for an object type. Specified as a name=value pair. Example: --object-id name=value

 

help arguments:

 

help show this help message and exit

--help show this help message and exit

 

Example:

 

$ pvmctl sys add-auth-key --key "$(ssh padmin@<other host> pvmctl sys list-public-key)"

 

$ pvmctl sys list-public-key

ssh-rsa DDDDB3NzaC1yc2EFDDDDAQABAAABAQC1tsHMYia7mR+2hzV7FPciUAg2bBP+X19mUyMtRTpvwhfDGlpuXMst/+YlGdaGKTB2343w/dx/5zuMDS3NApd5oVbQCMRH6eCmh+e2c1v+o4pHpxtEDETvsif+wW+yk13B2W6ZeZRAfISazH+d4uf4GXnMZ/3TtK7K5oNqinGa3xNGnbACyHGp/xwT14x5SHSws7wb4/7WLDKnmn4fqBz8639EpQCTqjpuPB3K8hq8y2/7Lc5dBj2zsJcLSAn+oH42SnedTwq6x90/pNXNFaApeyNDIZjFdr+lqpsvpYC3wnCOLK/7NBt0p50AVvRa2Y3LzVHaBxSerkcshcr90abc root@novalink-FRAME1

 

List the current (source) managed system, FRAME1.

 

padmin@novalink-FRAME1:~$ pvmctl sys list

Managed System

+----------------------------+------------------+--------+----------+------+-----------+

| Name | MTMS | Mem | Free Mem | Proc | Free Proc |

+----------------------------+------------------+--------+----------+------+-----------+

| FRAME1 | 8284-22A*999A9W | 262144 | 220160 | 10.0 | 6.3 |

+----------------------------+------------------+--------+----------+------+-----------+

 

List VMs on FRAME1.

 

padmin@novalink-FRAME1:~$ pvmctl vm list

Logical Partitions

+---------------------------------+----+---------+--------+-----------+---------------+------+-----+-----+

| Name | ID | State | RMC | Env | Ref Code | Mem | CPU | Ent |

+---------------------------------+----+---------+--------+-----------+---------------+------+-----+-----+

| novalink-FRAME1 | 3 | running | ---- | AIX/Linux | Linux ppc64le | 8192 | 2 | 1.0 |

| xwing-99eda99c-00000017 | 4 | running | active | AIX/Linux | | 6144 | 2 | 0.2 |

+---------------------------------+----+---------+--------+-----------+---------------+------+-----+-----+

 

Validate the Live Migration. Does not actually migrate the VM.

 

padmin@novalink-FRAME1:~$ pvmctl vm migrate -i id=4 --mgmt-svr 10.1.1.16 --validate

Validating logical partition xwing-99eda67c-00000017 migration...

Validation of logical partition xwing-99eda67c-00000017 succeeded.

 

Migrate the VM from FRAME1 to FRAME2.

 

padmin@novalink-FRAME1:~$ pvmctl vm migrate -i id=4 --mgmt-svr 10.1.1.16

Migration of logical partition xwing-99eda99c-00000017 starting. This may take a while.

Migration of logical partition xwing-99eda99c-00000017 succeeded.

 

List the destination managed system, FRAME2.

 

padmin@novalink-FRAME2:~$ pvmctl sys list

Managed System

+----------------------------+------------------+--------+----------+------+-----------+

| Name | MTMS | Mem | Free Mem | Proc | Free Proc |

+----------------------------+------------------+--------+----------+------+-----------+

| FRAME1 | 8284-22A*999A8W | 262144 | 220160 | 10.0 | 6.3 |

+----------------------------+------------------+--------+----------+------+-----------+

 

List VMs on FRAME2. The VM xwing is shown, in a running state, on this system.

 

padmin@novalink-FRAME2:~$ pvmctl vm list

Logical Partitions

+---------------------------------+----+---------+--------+-----------+---------------+------+-----+-----+

| Name | ID | State | RMC | Env | Ref Code | Mem | CPU | Ent |

+---------------------------------+----+---------+--------+-----------+---------------+------+-----+-----+

| novalink-FRAME2 | 3 | running | ---- | AIX/Linux | Linux ppc64le | 8192 | 2 | 1.0 |

| xwing-99eda99c-00000017 | 4 | running | active | AIX/Linux | | 6144 | 2 | 0.2 |

+---------------------------------+----+---------+--------+-----------+---------------+------+-----+-----+

 

 

Note: Be careful! if you just migrate without validating first, and if the vlan tag id is absent on the target, you will migrate but then lose the network on your vm... It doesnt check it first (on HMC, migration is preceded by validation, no such thing on novalink...). Thanks to Christophe Rousseau for the safety tip.

Note: Be careful if you migrate a VM that is under the control of PowerVC. PowerVC may or may not (more likely not) recognise that the VM has moved to a different Host. As this is considered an "out of band" operation, PowerVC may never recover from this state automatically and may require manual intervention to resolve.

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