Oracle^® VM Server for SPARC 3.5 Administration Guide

Configuring Domain Dependencies

You can use the Logical Domains Manager to establish dependency relationships between domains. A domain that has one or more domains that depend on it is called a master domain. A domain that depends on another domain is called a slave domain.

Each slave domain can specify up to four master domains by setting the master property. For example, the pine slave domain specifies its four master domains in the following comma-separated list:

# ldm add-domain master=alpha,beta,gamma,delta pine

The alpha, beta, gamma, and delta master domains all specify a failure policy of stop.

Each master domain can specify what happens to its slave domains in the event that the master domain fails. For instance, if a master domain fails, it might require its slave domains to panic. If a slave domain has more than one master domain, each master domain must have the same failure policy. So, the first master domain to fail triggers its defined failure policy on all of its slave domains.

The master domain's failure policy is controlled by setting one of the following values to the failure-policy property:

• ignore ignores any slave domains

• panic panics any slave domains (similar to running the ldm panic-domain command)

• reset immediately stops and then restarts any slave domains (similar to running the ldm stop-domain -f command and then the ldm start-domain command)

• stop stops any slave domains (similar to running the ldm stop-domain -f command)

In this example, the master domains specify their failure policy as follows:

primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=ignore apple
primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=panic lemon
primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=reset orange
primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=stop peach
primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=stop alpha
primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=stop beta
primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=stop gamma
primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=stop delta

You can use this mechanism to create explicit dependencies between domains. For example, a guest domain implicitly depends on the service domain to provide its virtual devices. A guest domain's I/O is blocked when the service domain on which it depends is not up and running. By defining a guest domain as a slave of its service domain, you can specify the behavior of the guest domain when its service domain goes down. When no such dependency is established, a guest domain just waits for its service domain to return to service.

For domain dependency XML examples, see Domain Information (ldom_info) Resource in Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.5 Developer’s Guide.

Domain Dependency Examples

The following examples show how to configure domain dependencies.

Example 77  Configuring a Failure Policy by Using Domain Dependencies

The first command creates a master domain called twizzle. This command uses failure-policy=reset to specify that slave domains reset if the twizzle domain fails. The second command modifies a master domain called primary. This command uses failure-policy=reset to specify that slave domains reset if the primary domain fails. The third command creates a slave domain called chocktaw that depends on two master domains, twizzle and primary. The slave domain uses master=twizzle,primary to specify its master domains. In the event either the twizzle or primary domain fails, the chocktaw domain will reset.

primary# ldm add-domain failure-policy=reset twizzle
primary# ldm set-domain failure-policy=reset primary
primary# ldm add-domain master=twizzle,primary chocktaw

Example 78  Modifying a Domain to Assign a Master Domain

This example shows how to use the ldm set-domain command to modify the orange domain to assign primary as the master domain. The second command uses the ldm set-domain command to assign orange and primary as master domains for the tangerine domain. The third command lists information about all of these domains.

primary# ldm set-domain master=primary orange
primary# ldm set-domain master=orange,primary tangerine
primary# ldm list -o domain
NAME             STATE      FLAGS   UTIL
primary          active     -n-cv-  0.2%

SOFTSTATE
Solaris running

HOSTID
    0x83d8b31c

CONTROL
    failure-policy=ignore

DEPENDENCY
    master=

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME             STATE      FLAGS   UTIL
orange           bound      ------

HOSTID
    0x84fb28ef

CONTROL
    failure-policy=ignore

DEPENDENCY
    master=primary

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME             STATE      FLAGS   UTIL
tangerine        bound      ------

HOSTID
    0x84f948e9

CONTROL
    failure-policy=ignore

DEPENDENCY
    master=orange,primary

Example 79  Showing a Parseable Domain Listing

The following shows an example listing with parseable output:

primary# ldm list -o domain -p

Dependency Cycles

The Logical Domains Manager does not permit you to create domain relationships that create a dependency cycle. A dependency cycle is a relationship between two or more domains that lead to a situation where a slave domain depends on itself or a master domain depends on one of its slave domains.

The Logical Domains Manager determines whether a dependency cycle exists before adding a dependency. The Logical Domains Manager starts at the slave domain and searches along all paths that are specified by the master array until the end of the path is reached. Any dependency cycles found along the way are reported as errors.

The following example shows how a dependency cycle might be created. The first command creates a slave domain called mohawk that specifies its master domain as primary. So, mohawk depends on primary in the dependency chain shown in the following diagram.

Figure 26  Single Domain Dependency

The second command creates a slave domain called primary that specifies its master domain as counter. So, mohawk depends on primary, which depends on counter in the dependency chain shown in the following diagram.

Figure 27  Multiple Domain Dependency

The third command attempts to create a dependency between the counter and mohawk domains, which would produce the dependency cycle shown in the following diagram.

Figure 28  Domain Dependency Cycle

The ldm set-domain command will fail with the following error message:

# ldm add-domain master=primary mohawk
# ldm set-domain master=counter primary
# ldm set-domain master=mohawk counter
Dependency cycle detected: LDom "counter" indicates "primary" as its master