Solaris 10 6/06 Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations

Upgrading When Solaris Zones are Installed on a System

This section provides a brief overview of Solaris Zones partitioning technology, an upgrading with non-global zones overview, and disk space planning guidelines.

For complete information on overview, planning, creating and configuring zones, see Chapter 16, Introduction to Solaris Zones, in System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones.

The Solaris Zones partitioning technology is used to virtualize operating system services and provide an isolated and secure environment for running applications. A non-global zone is a virtualized operating system environment created within a single instance of the Solaris OS. When you create a non-global zone, you produce an application execution environment in which processes are isolated from the rest of the system. This isolation prevents processes that are running in one non-global zone from monitoring or affecting processes that are running in other non-global zones. Even a process running with superuser credentials cannot view or affect activity in other zones. A non-global zone also provides an abstract layer that separates applications from the physical attributes of the machine on which they are deployed. Examples of these attributes include physical device paths.

Every Solaris system contains a global zone. The global zone has a dual function. The global zone is both the default zone for the system and the zone used for system-wide administrative control. All processes run in the global zone if no non-global zones are created by the global administrator. The global zone is the only zone from which a non-global zone can be configured, installed, managed, or uninstalled. Only the global zone is bootable from the system hardware. Administration of the system infrastructure, such as physical devices, routing, or dynamic reconfiguration (DR), is only possible in the global zone. Appropriately privileged processes running in the global zone can access objects associated with the non-global zones.

Upgrading With Non-Global Zones

After the Solaris OS is installed, you can install and configure non-global zones. When you are ready to upgrade the Solaris OS, you can upgrade a system that has non-global zones installed. The Solaris interactive installation program and custom JumpStart programs enable an upgrade.

With the Solaris interactive installation program, you can upgrade a system with non-global zones by selecting the Upgrade Install on the Select Upgrade or Initial Install panel. The installation program then analyzes your system to determine if your system is upgradable, and provides you a summary of the analysis. The installation program then prompts you to continue the upgrade. You can use this program with the following limitations:
- You cannot customize your upgrade. For example, you cannot install additional software products, install additional locale packages, or modify the disk layout.
- You must use the Solaris Operating System DVD or a DVD-created network installation image. You cannot use the Solaris Software CDs to upgrade a system. For more information about installing with this program, see Chapter 2, Installing With the Solaris Installation Program (Tasks), in Solaris 10 6/06 Installation Guide: Basic Installations.
With the custom JumpStart installation program, you can upgrade by using only the install_type and root_device keywords.

Because some keywords affect non-global zones, some keywords cannot be included in a profile. For example, using keywords that add packages, reallocate disk space, or add locales would affect non-global zones. If you use these keywords, they are ignored or cause the JumpStart upgrade to fail. For a list of these keywords, see Limiting Profile Keywords When Upgrading With Non-Global Zones.

Table 3–7 Limitations When Upgrading With Non-Global Zones


Program or Condition	Description
Solaris Live Upgrade	You cannot use Solaris Live Upgrade to upgrade a system when non-global zones are installed. You can create a boot environment with the `lucreate` command, but if you use the `luupgrade` command, the upgrade fails. An error message is displayed.
Solaris Flash archives	A Solaris Flash archive cannot be properly created when a non-global zone is installed. The Solaris Flash feature is not compatible with Solaris Zones partitioning technology. If you create a Solaris Flash archive, the resulting archive is not installed properly when the archive is deployed under these conditions: The archive is created in a non-global zone. The archive is created in a global zone that has non-global zones installed.
Using a command that uses the `-R` option or equivalent must not be used in some situations.	Any command that accepts an alternate root (`/`) file system by using the `-R` option or equivalent must not be used if the following are true: The command is run in the global zone. The alternative root (`/`) file system refers to any path within a non-global zone. An example is the `-R` `root_path` option to the `pkgadd` utility run from the global zone with a path to the root (`/`) file system in a non-global zone. For a list of utilities that accept an alternate root (`/`) file system and more information about zones, see Restriction on Accessing A Non-Global Zone From the Global Zone in System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones.

Backing Up Your System Before Performing an Upgrade With Zones

You should back up the global and non-global zones on your Solaris system before you perform the upgrade. For information about backing up a system with zones installed, see Chapter 25, Solaris Zones Administration (Overview), in System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones.

Disk Space Requirements for Non-Global Zones

When installing the global zone, be sure to reserve enough disk space for all of the zones you might create. Each non-global zone might have unique disk space requirements.

No limits are placed on how much disk space can be consumed by a zone. The global zone administrator is responsible for space restriction. Even a small uniprocessor system can support a number of zones running simultaneously. The characteristics of the packages installed in the global zone affect the space requirements of the non-global zones that are created. The number of packages and space requirements are factors.

For complete planning requirements and recommendations, see Chapter 18, Planning and Configuring Non-Global Zones (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones.