Sun Microsystems 10 manual Configuration and administration

Version 3.1-enSolaris 10 Container Guide - 3.1 4. Best Practices Effective: 30/11/2009

4.3. Configuration and administration

4.3.1. Manual configuration of zones with zonecfg

[ug] The command zonecfg is used to configure a zone; see the example in the Cookbook.

The configuration merely describes the directory (zonecfg: zonepath) in which the files for the zone are to be placed and how system directories of a local zone are created from the directory contents from the global zone (copy/loopback mount). Additional options are configuration of network addresses, file systems, devices, etc.

Each zone, once configured, can also be used as a template for additional zones. This cloning of configurations considerably simplifies the creation of zones that have similar configurations.

We advise against configuring zones by editing the XML-files under /etc/zones since this procedure is very error-prone and is therefore not supported.

4.3.2. Manual installation of zones with zoneadm

[ug] Once a zone has been configured, the next step consists of its installation with zoneadm -z <zone> install (see Cookbook). In the process, all packages (Solaris pkg) that do not belong to the Solaris kernel are installed into the zone, while the files that are available from the global zone via loopback mount are not copied. During this process, the post-install scripts of the packages for the zone are also executed. In the end, the zone has its own package database (/var/sadm/install/*). The packages of the global zone are used as the source for the packages to be installed on the local zone.

After this , the zone can be booted.

4.3.3. Manual uninstallation of zones with zoneadm

[ug] If a zone is not needed anymore, it can be uninstalled with

zoneadm -z <zone> uninstall . This will remove all files in the zone path, even those that were created after installation.

The configuration of the zone will remain.

4.3.4. Manual removal of a configured zone with zonecfg

[ug] To remove a zone, uninstallation should be performed first. Next, the configuration of the zone can be removed with the command zoneadm -z zone destroy.

4.3.5. Duplication of an installed zone

[ug] Zones can be duplicated rapidly if the inherit-pkg-dirconfigurations are identical. Then, a zone can be created as a template and quickly duplicated for each zone by copying the contents.

Since Solaris 10 11/06, this can be done with the command zoneadm clone . Additionally to copying the directories some tests are performed.

Starting with Solaris 10 5/09 the cloning for a zone on ZFS, the clone functionality of ZFS is used automatically, which considerably accelerates zone duplication.

(5.3.7 Duplicating zones with zoneadm clone or

5.3.8 Duplicating zones with zoneadm detach/attach and zfs clone).

4.3.6. Standardized creation of zones

[ug] Zones can be created in the following manner:

∙with the command zonecfg and then with zoneadm to install the zone

∙with the container manager in the Sun Management Center (SunMC)

∙with Webmin, a free management tool included with Solaris 10/OpenSolaris (Solaris zones module: latest version zones.wbm.gz downloadable at http://www.webmin.com/standard.html)

∙by scripts that call zonecfg and zoneadm

The container manager and Webmin are suitable for admins that rarely set up zones.

With zonecfg, zones can be created according to site standards by setting up zones as templates. A zone can then be used as a template with the zonecfg subcommand

create -t <template> .

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