iCOD and pstat, pstat_getdynamic, and mpctl System Calls

pstat

pstat_getdynamic now returns the number of active processors in pst_dynamic.psd_proc_cnt. In the original release of HP-UX 11.00, it was always the same as pst_dynamic.psd_max_proc_cnt. That field now includes deactivated processors.

In the past, a call to pstat_getdynamic returned fields psd_proc_cnt (number of active processors) and psd_max_proc_cnt (maximum number of active processors), and they usually had the same value. This is because all processors in the system were usually active. Consequently, these fields could be used interchangeably even though they had different meanings. With iCOD systems, these fields are no longer interchangeable.

Four other fields are adjusted in pst_dynamic structure. They are psd_avg_1_min, psd_avg_5_min, psd_avg_15_min, and psd_cpu_time[].

psd_avg_1_min is calculated by summing up the corresponding entries in psd_mp_avg_1_min[] and dividing by psd_max_proc_cnt. In effect, psd_avg_1_min reflects the average values of psd_mp_avg_1_min[]. The change is made to exclude the values of the deactivated processors when summing up entries in psd_mp_avg_1_min[]. The sum is then divided by psd_proc_cnt. Thus, values of deactivated processors are not taken into account for each load average value. psd_avg_5_min and psd_avg_15_min is adjusted in a similar way.

Similarly, psd_cpu_time[i] reflects the average values in psd_mp_cpu_time[][i]. Again, the adjustment is to exclude the values of deactivated processors in psd_mp_cpu_time[][i] and the sum is then divided by psd_proc_cnt. Thus, values of deactivated processors are not taken into account for each load average value.

Note that even though these average fields are adjusted, no information is lost because psd_mp_avg_*_min and psd_mp_cpu_time[] still contain deactivated processor values.

mpctl

MPC_GETNUMSPUS now returns the number of activated processors. Earlier versions of this command reported activated and deactivated processors in this field.

MPC_GETFIRSTSPU now returns the first activated processor.

MPC_GETNEXTSPU now returns the next activated processor and skips deactivated ones.

MPC_GETNUMSPUS, MPC_GETFIRSTSPU and MPC_GETNEXTSPU now take into account deactivated processors. MPC_GETNUMSPUS does not count deactivated processors and the other two options do not return deactivated processors’ indices.

Affected HP-UX Commands

pstat() and mpctl() required changes to the following HP-UX commands in order to work properly on HP-UX systems:

Patches for these commands are required before installing iCOD B.05.x on HP-UX 11.0. No commands patches are required on HP-UX 11i v1.