Zones

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ZONES - Solaris application containers

Solaris provides isolated environments with the zone facility. Other processes, network interfaces, file systems, devices, and inter-process communications are restricted to prevent interaction for the non-global zones. Containers are zones with an enabled Resource Management.

A very common way to build a zone is a full installation, with own binaries and libraries, and so the possibility for several patch levels. That would need about 3GB free space in your filesystem.

simple zone configuration

# zonecfg -z <zonename>
zonecfg:zonename> create -b
zonecfg:zonename> set zonepath=<location/directory>
zonecfg:zonename> set autoboot=[true|false]
zonecfg:zonename> add net 
zonecfg:zonename:net> set address=<IP[/SM]>
zonecfg:zonename:net> set physical=<network device>
zonecfg:zonename:net> end
zonecfg:zonename> commit
zonecfg:zonename> exit
# zoneadm -z <zonename> verify
# zoneadm -z <zonename> install
Preparing to install zone zonename. 
Creating list of files to copy from the global zone. 
Copying <118457> files to the zone. 
...
..
.

# zoneadm list -cv
  ID NAME             STATUS         PATH
   0 global           running        /
   - zonename         installed      /directory
# zoneadm -z <zonename> boot
# zlogin -C <zonename>

some useful optional settings

inherit directory

during the initial configuration you can add inherit system directories to reduced the size of zones, like /lib /platform /sbin /usr /opt. This directory will be mounted in the zone read only from the global zone.

zonecfg:zonename> add inherit-pkg-dir
zonecfg:zonename:inherit-pkg-dir> set dir=<directory>
zonecfg:zonename:inherit-pkg-dir> end

shared directory

zonecfg:zonename> add fs
zonecfg:zonename:fs> set dir=<which directory>
zonecfg:zonename:fs> set special=<where to?>
zonecfg:zonename:fs> set type=lofs
zonecfg:zonename:fs> add options [rw,nodevices]
zonecfg:zonename:fs> end

own filesystem

zonecfg:zonename> add fs
zonecfg:zonename:fs> set dir=<mount point>
zonecfg:zonename:fs> set special=<block device>
zonecfg:zonename:fs> set raw=<raw device>
zonecfg:zonename:fs> set type=<filesystem type>
zonecfg:zonename:fs> add options [fs mount option]
zonecfg:zonename:fs> end

add a comment

zonecfg:zonename> add attr
zonecfg:zonename:attr> set name=comment
zonecfg:zonename:attr> set type=string
zonecfg:zonename:attr> set value="My comment for this zone"
zonecfg:zonename:attr> end

add a resource control

zonecfg:zonename> add rctl
zonecfg:zonename:rctl> set name=zone.cpu-shares
zonecfg:zonename:rctl> add value (priv=privileged,limit=5,action=none)
zonecfg:zonename:rctl> end

associating the zone with a resource pool

zonecfg:zonename> set pool=<poolname>

external links

OpenSolaris Community

BigAdmin