Adding a physical I/O adapter to a partition

You can dynamically add a physical I/O slot, the adapter, and devices that are connected to the slot to an active partition by using the Hardware Management Console (HMC). You can add I/O capabilities to an active partition without shutting down the partition.

Before you begin

Consider the following conditions when you add physical I/O slots to a Linux® partition:
  • A Linux distribution that supports dynamic partitioning is installed on the Linux partition. Distributions that support dynamic partitioning include SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, and later.
  • The DynamicRM tool package is installed on the Linux partition. To download the DynamicRM tool package, see the Service and productivity tools for Linux on POWER® systems website.

You cannot add physical I/O devices and slots to partitions that use shared memory. You can allocate only virtual adapters to partitions that use shared memory.

About this task

To dynamically add a physical I/O adapter to an active partition by using an HMC, complete the following steps:

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, click the Resources icon The icon represents the Resources function of the HMC.
  2. Click All Systems. The All Systems page is displayed.
  3. In the work pane, select the partition for which you want to view or change the properties and capabilities and click Actions > View Partition Properties. The Properties page is displayed. You can view and change the properties that are listed under the Properties area.
  4. In the Properties area, click Physical I/O Adapters. The table lists all the adapters that are available for the partition.
  5. Click Add Adapter. The Add Physical I/O Adapter(s) page opens.
  6. Select an I/O adapter from the Add Physical I/O Adapter(s) list that you want to add to the partition. You can view the adapters that are available in the other drawers of the server by clicking the View list. You can also narrow your search for available adapters, by using the filter to list adapters based on physical location code.
  7. Click Save after you select the I/O adapter. Alternatively, click Cancel to reject the changes and close the page.