Deploying IBM Virtual HMC (vHMC) 11 on Proxmox

IBM Virtual Hardware Management Console 11 (vHMC-11) Dashboard Example

IBM only provides instructions for deploying the Virtual Hardware Management Console on KVM running on Red Hat or Ubuntu, neither of which will probably be running in most datacenters that have an IBM Power system.

So, we undertook the task of figuring out how to deploy the new vHMC version 11 on Proxmox and the IBM instructions for KVM deployment are of no help for this endeavor. After downloading the ~6.8GB IBM vHMC tar.gz file, you'll need to unzip to a folder, resulting in a nearly 13GB .tar file. Don't try to expand this file unless you have about 510GB (yes, gigabytes) of extra disk space on your PC. If you DO have that extra space, the .tar file expands into a 500GB disk1.img file and four other files (see image below)

Files in the IBM vHMC 11 for KVM tar archive

If you have the extra disk space on the PC to expand the .tar file you can then use WinSCP to secure copy the file over to the Proxmox server, again taking care to make sure you have enough disk space (510GB EXTRA Gigabytes) to /tmp or /var/tmp.

In our case, we needed a "bridge" to park the expanded tar archive so we elected to use a NAS storage device that supported both SMB/CIFS as well as NFS 4.x.

​Then, on the Proxmox server we mounted the shared folder as an NFS mount on the Proxmox server (see image below) which created three subfolders: images, import, and template . After mounting the shared folder on the NAS to the PC and using an archive extraction tool we unzipped the files to the shared folder's subfolder named IMPORT.

Proxmox - mount NFS storage

Next, you need to create a virtual machine definition on the Proxmox server, but on the tab for Disk you remove the default disk, creating a VM definition with CPU, RAM and networking but no pre-provisioned disk space. Now that the VM is created, notate the VM ID number, in our example here the ID is 101.

Now, we will use the QM IMPORTDISK command to convert the disk1.img file into a Proxmox QEMU disk image file.

​Select the Proxmox server node you want to use for the import, click on >SHELL to get a command line, and navigate to the mounted NFS share:

cd /mnt/pve/vz/INSERT_NFS_NAME_HERE/import

If you do a ls -la command you will see the files extracted from the .tar file

List of files from vHMC .tar archive

The syntax for the import command is as follows:

qm importdisk VMID /LOCATION_OF_img_FILE/disk1.img TargetStorageName

In our example the command is as follows, which places the converted .img file onto our internal ZFS storage array:

qm importdisk 101 /mnt/pve/synnas01/import/disk1.img pxmxsvr1ZFS

***(remember, do NOT leave the SHELL environment until the import is COMPLETE or it will abort the command)***

qm import disk command example to import .img file

Once the disk1.img file has been imported you can go back to the Proxmox manager and select your VM and go to the Hardware tab. You will see a device name Unused Disk 0.

Click on the Unused Disk 0 and select EDIT from the top menu, which will initiate the Add Unused Disk wizard. Click on ADD and the imported disk will now be added to the new vHMC virtual machine.

Once this process is complete, you can edit any other VM hardware items as needed. The base vHMC image configures four (4) network adapters within the virtual machine. Eth0 is intended to be the management interface and Eth1 is the primary interface for the HMC port vLAN. In smaller environments your vHMC and the Power System HMC port may be configured on the same VLAN. Adjust the quantity of network adapters as needed. IBM's default recommendation is for (4) virtual CPUs and 16GB of RAM.

Once these items are modified as necessary, there is one more order of business to tend to: adjusting the BOOT ORDER of the devices so that the VM will boot when you start it.

​Navigate to Options -> Boot Order, and check the box for Enabled next to the scsi0 disk, then grab the hamburger menu next to the #3 and drag the scsi0 device to the top of the boot order list. Then click OK.

Change VM virtual disk boot order

Click on START to power on your new vHMC virtual machine and then >Console to watch the boot process. Once the boot cycle completes (yes, it takes FOREVER to boot) then you can log into the management GUI (hscroot / abc123) and begin the configuration process for setting up the network(s) devices.

​Your mouse will NOT work on the two initial setup questions that pop up, you will need to use the keyboard arrow keys and the TAB key.
​
*note: network changes will not take effect until the vHMC is rebooted.

IBM vHMC 11 login screen

IBM vHMC 11 Main Dashboard