The proper way to power down a secondary partition is by using the i5/OS™ power down system (PWRDWNSYS) command.
From a command line at a workstation on that secondary partition type PWRDWNSYS OPTION (*CNTRLD) DELAY (600) and press Enter.
If you power down a secondary partition, you will not affect any other logical partitions. This command is the preferred way to power down a secondary partition.
Before you power down the primary partition, use the PWRDWNSYS command to power down each of the secondary partitions. Then, use the PWRDWNSYS command to power down the primary partition.
Beginning in V5R2, you can set up confirmation support on the PWRDWNSYS command. This confirmation display will ask you if you want to power down the primary partition while secondary partitions are active. To change the primary PWRDWNSYS command default from a command line, type ADDENVVAR and press Enter. The environment variable is QIBM_PWRDWNSYS_CONFIRM.
From a command line at a workstation on the primary partition type PWRDWNSYS OPTION (*CNTRLD) DELAY (600) and press Enter.
If you do not power down the secondary partitions before the primary partition, all of the active secondary partitions will power down abnormally.
The partition manager will allow secondary partitions to attempt to write changed data from memory to disk units. However, the operating system may not reach normal job termination. The next IPL for the affected secondary partition will be treated as an abnormal IPL and may take much longer to complete.
Use delayed power off (the power button on the remote control panel) only when you must power down a logical partition, and the PWRDWNSYS command does not work.
When you use the delayed power off option, the partition waits a predetermined amount of time to power down. This allows the partition time to end jobs and write data to disks. If the partition is unable to shut down within the predetermined amount of time, it will end abnormally and the next restart may take a long time.
Use immediate power off (function 8 on the remote control panel) only when a logical partition cannot power down using PWRDWNSYS or delayed power off.
When you use the immediate power off option from the remote control panel, the system powers down without any preset delay. This may cause an abnormal IPL of the logical partition and possibly cause loss of data.
To perform a delayed power off or an immediate power off, you should be working with the remote control panel. The power button will start a delayed power off and function 8 will start an immediate power off of a system. You need a Service Tools user ID with operations or administration authority to the System Partitions function in Dedicated Service Tools (DST) to display the remote control panel.
Refer to Control panel functions for information on how to use the remote control panel and Restart the system (IPL) for instructions on how to restart your server.