Mark Post wrote:
>I was thinking more in terms of command line switches that determine
>what should be returned. For example:
>cmdname --guest                 Would return the name of my running guest
>cmdname --host          Would return the name of the z/VM or KVM host.
>cmdname --lpar          Would return the name of the LPAR.
>cmdname --cec           Would return the name of the CEC. Or CPC, since I 
think
>that's the current IBM name.

If I get a vote, I would prefer plain English, avoiding unnecessary 
jargon, even IBM's. :-) How about:

--guest
--hypervisor
--partition
--platform

The last one could report the IBM Z Personal Development Tool ("ZPDT") or 
QEMU, as notable examples, so sometimes the answer is non-physical. Hence 
CPC isn't universally applicable even if the jargon were acceptable. If 
platform isn't the right word then "base" and "server" are possible 
alternatives. "Host" clashes with popular terms such as "hostname," so 
it's not my favorite here.

If there are precedents that are also reasonably jargon free, they're 
probably fine.

>There's already the systemd-detect-virt command to tell you what
>hypervisor is in use, so that wouldn't be needed. I can't say for sure
>if many people would be interested in finding out they're running 6
>layers of virtualization deep and what each of those is. If someone does
>want that, they should speak up.

The following execution environment details are some of the ones useful to 
me, anyway: physical machine model and submodel (e.g. 8562-T02 Max13), 
capacity machine model (if any CPs are supplying any capacity, e.g. "G03"; 
otherwise "A00" or "400" would probably be reported)(*), machine serial 
number, whether CPACF is fully activated (i.e. whether Feature Code 3863 
is present), whether Secure Execution for Linux (Feature Code 0100) is 
present, Crypto Express features (lszcrypt shows these details), the SMT 
mode, whether the machine is in any significant state of distress 
(thermally throttled processors for example), whether it's Securely 
Booted, firmware (driver) details if knowable, temporary v. permanent 
capacity characteristics.... That's off the top of my head. These details 
are already available in many cases, but maybe some are missing.

(*) It could still be useful to know the machine's CP configuration even 
if CPs aren't currently involved in supplying capacity. It's very useful 
to know if they are, even a little, since CPs are available in subcapacity 
configurations.

- - - - - - - - - -
Timothy Sipples
I.T. Architect Executive
Digital Asset & Other Industry Solutions
IBM Z & LinuxONE
- - - - - - - - - -
E-Mail: [email protected]

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