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Alex Bolotov
Asked: 2010-03-18 15:49:48 +0800 CST

HP-UX (PA-RISC|Itanium) virtualisation on (x86-64|x86)

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I'm looking for a way to run HP-UX (for educational purposes), but I don't have HP hardware right now.

These options are not very suitable for me:

  • HP TestDrive program - Looks like it was discontinued 2 years ago.
  • Ski - looks like only CPU emulator. Is it worth trying?
  • HPPAQEMU - Patch for old Qemu for HPPA-Linux guest-OS only. Is it worth trying?
  • hp-ux Aires - I don't need to visualize HP-PA on HP-Itanium. That question is about using HP-UX without HP hardware.

A year ago I was working as a system integrator at TTI Telecom and now I'm (self-|un)employed and don't want to look for job right now because of institute graduation. TTI and some other companies with offices in my city use HP-UX. So better knowledge of HP-UX could be a very useful skill if I decide to work there.

emulation hp-ux

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Buy an old server or workstation? I don't see a lot on eBay, but if you could find one locally, I bet a lot of places are like the last place I worked: we threw out a couple of 712 workstations that had been used for testing, and when I left there was still a E55 server sitting unplugged in the corner.

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  2. I agree with Ward's post. For an Itanium/HPUX box you can get a ZX6000 off ebay - a lightly configured one can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. Older PA-RISC boxes can be purchased even cheaper.

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  3. I can only offer some pointers:

    QEmu virtualization instructions from April 2019:

    Blog post: "Running HP-UX 11.11 on qemu-system-hppa" https://astr0baby.wordpress.com/2019/04/28/running-hp-ux-11-11-on-qemu-system-hppa/

    Video: "HP-UX 11.11 on qemu-system-hppa with retro-terminal" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd3wTWO3IIs

    Future HP-UX containers on Linux announced in May 2017:

    "HPE offers an escape from the aging HP-UX OS -- with containers" https://www.computerworld.com/article/3195952/hpe-offers-an-escape-from-the-aging-hp-ux-os-with-containers.html

    • "HPE will provide containers to transition from conventional mainframe-style OSes to new hardware like x86-based Xeon servers. In this case, HPE is trying to get users to transition from Itanium chips."

    • "We will enable customers to re-host their HP-UX workloads on Linux-based containers running on industry-standard x86 servers in the future"

    Cloud VPS

    There are also a few HP-UX cloud hosts but they are expensive for individuals (upwards of $20 per day).

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  4. Virtualize hpux is atm impossible at least on x86,is possible to emulate hpux on..hpux,using hp itanium virtual machine or if supported by server via npar or vpar. Is "chained" to specifical hardware and efi(in itanium case) or pdc in hppa case. The qemu hppa patch works only for linux to emulate linux(sic!) hppa in x86,and i think it was painful slowly because lack of accelerator module The only good news: i hear(but is not sure) that hp in the future will port hpux to xeon,so probably we can see it in x86 environments. Atm the only good solution is to buy an old hppa machine(there is a nice workstation called hp C8000) to emulate hpux until 11.23,or a hp itanium machine server to emulate hpux 11.31. Edit: in the latest years qemu-system-hppa can emulate an old HP workstation and HP-UX 11.11(32bit only) can boot, of course is emulation, not virtualization, so expect a very very very slow thing I have tested it on dual core Xeon CPU and only for install it take over 2 hours, after install boot in 5 minutes(sic!) and the cpu is on 100% even with no activity, maybe in the future we can emulate better.

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