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Version 3.1-en Solaris 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-dir configurations 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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