Hardware Management Console terminal and console options

The HMC provides virtual terminal emulation for AIX® and Linux logical partitions and virtual 5250 console emulation for IBM® i logical partitions.

The HMC connects to the server firmware. You use the HMC to specify to the server firmware how you want resources to be allocated among the logical partitions on the managed system. You use the HMC to start and stop the logical partitions, update the server firmware code, manage Capacity on Demand, and transmit service information to service and support if there are any hardware problems with your managed system. You can also use the HMC to perform the partition suspend and resume function

You can create virtual terminal and virtual 5250 console sessions locally on the HMC by using the Server Management commands on the HMC. If you configure the HMC to allow remote access, you can also create virtual terminal and virtual 5250 console sessions remotely through the HMC. You can create remote virtual terminal sessions on AIX and Linux logical partitions by using the Server Management commands. You can also create virtual 5250 console sessions on IBM i logical partitions. You must configure the HMC to allow remote access, and you must configure encryption on the logical partitions for the session to be secure.

The HMC communicates with servers by using service applications to detect, consolidate, and send information to IBM for analysis.

The following figure shows a partitioned server being managed by an HMC.