Sometimes it’s necessary to mount an ISO to an LPAR virtually via a VIOS.
In this example, our ISO image file, ITM-only.iso, is copied to the /tmp directory, and the virtual media library has already been created at /var/vio/VMLibrary (see mkrep command for further details on this). See here for how to convert files to an ISO.
We will need to know the vhost devices used for the LPAR we want to mount the ISO to (or create them if they do not exist), and the LPAR #.
In this case the LPAR ID is 1 and is configured with vhost0. We are using the padmin user on the VIO server and root user on the target LPAR. If the LPAR is new, you will need to ensure you’ve created all the relevant virtual adapters on both the new LPAR and each VIO server, for the latter using a DLPAR operation and a cfgdev command as padmin to bring the vhost into existence.
First let’s load the ISO into the virtual media library..
mkvopt -name ITM -file /tmp/ITM-only.iso -ro |
We should now be able to see our media by running: –
$ lsrep Size(mb) Free(mb) Parent Pool Parent Size Parent Free 20403 3398 rootvg 279552 140288 Name File Size Optical Access IPMBaseServer43 453 None rw IPMHIghSpeed43 4 None rw IPMMedSpeed 4 None rw IPMPTF 678 vtopt0 rw ITM 2711 None ro <----- PowerHA-R610-Base 313 None rw PowerHA-R610-SP03 49 None rw aix_61_01 4040 None rw aix_61_02 1312 None rw db2 302 None rw goldbuild 1629 None ro hispeedprinter 4 None rw ipm_410 374 None rw medspeedprinters 4 None rw mksysb 5120 None rw sddpcm.iso 4 None rw sddpcm61 4 None rw |
If you decide your didn’t name your VML disk right, or would just like to change it, you can use the command:
chvopt -name <old_name> -mv <new_name> |
You can now delete the original ISO file in /tmp.
Now create a virtual optical adapter on the vadapter associated with our target LPAR (if one does not already exist, do lsmap to see this).
mkvdev -fbo -vadapter vhost0 vtopt0 |
And we can then load that virtual device with our media with
loadopt -disk ITM -vtd vtopt0 |
lsvopt will show you it’s mounted…
$ lsvopt VTD Media Size(mb) vtopt0 ITM 2711 |
Running cfgmgr on the target LPAR as root will now show a cd0 device which we can mount.
lsdev -Cccdrom cd0 Available Virtual SCSI Optical Served by VIO Server mount -o ro /dev/cd0 /cdrom |
Change to the /cdrom directory and you have your ISO all mounted and ready to go.
When you’re finished, change directory so you’re not in /cdrom and do…
umount /cdrom rmdev -dl cd0 |
You may decide you want to keep the cdrom device for future use, in which case don’t run that last rmdev command.
Back on the VIOS as padmin do:
unloadopt -vtd vtopt0 |
Use a rmvdev command if you want to remove the virtual optical device from the VIOS, but it doesn’t consume any resource when not in use, so you may as well leave it.
