[Simh] VMS Cluster boot on an unique container

[Bucher, Andreas (Andreas)** CTR **]

Hi, 

this means: You want to use the same phyiscal disk image file on the host system, and tell two (or more ?) SIMH instances to connect to an run on this same image ?

This reminds me - it should be identical to booting two 11/750s (or whatever ...), both connected to a dual-interface RA81 SDI disk :-)
I remember we did this years ago when working with those VAXes, and it was working fine - the VMS took care of the file locking and sharing, you only had to take care to duplicate the config files and directories correctly. It is generalls supported by VMS, with the intention to save disks and disk space, and running clusters from shared disks.

I think VMS requires some special setup ("shared disk" was the keyword, I think. VMS shares the read-only OS files, and duplicates the config).

I have to admit that I never tried this with SIMH, but I gave it a quick try: One set of disk image files, copy the vax.ini to vax1.ini, modify the vax1.ini to point the console terminal to a different port, and launch "vax.exe vax.ini", and in a second task "vax.exe vax1.ini".

Boths systems boot up fine, are up and running, and I can log on via the console. 

I did not create any duplicate config so far, means: Both VAXes use the same name and network config, but since I connecte the console locally, that's no issue so far. I did not notice any file locking or other disk access issues.

Regards,
Andreas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com 
> [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of patrick renouvel
> Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2011 10:00 AM
> To: simh at trailing-edge.com
> Subject: [Simh] VMS Cluster boot on an unique container
> 
> Good morning, 
> 
> I used often SimH for VAX emulation Standalone as well as LAVC. 
> 
> I'd like to boot two SimH instance on the same disk (sys0 and 
> sys1 ) to have a copy of our Charon Cluster. 
> 
> Did somebody try this once ? 
> 
> Any lock troubles ? 
> 
> Thanks a lot for your precious help. 
> 
> Kind regards. 
> 
> Patrick. 
>