Branded Zones Technology

The branded zone (BrandZ) framework extends the Solaris Zones infrastructure, documented in this manual in Part II, Zones, to include the creation of brands. The term brand can refer to a wide range of operating environments. BrandZ enables the creation of non-global zones that contain non-native operating environments used for running applications. The brand type is used to determine the scripts that are executed when a zone is installed and booted. In addition, a zone's brand is used to properly identify the correct application type at application launch time. All brand management is performed through extensions to the current zones structure.

A brand can provide a simple or a complex environment. For example, a simple environment could replace the standard Solaris utilities with their GNU equivalents. A complex environment could provide a complete Linux user space which supports the execution of Linux applications.

Every zone is configured with an associated brand. The default is the native brand, Solaris. A branded zone will support exactly one brand of non-native binary, which means that a branded zone provides a single operating environment.

BrandZ extends the zones tools in the following ways:

• The zonecfg command is used to set a zone's brand type when the zone is configured.

• The zoneadm command is used to report a zone's brand type as well as administer the zone.

You can change the brand of a zone in the configured state. Once a branded zone has been installed, that brand cannot be changed or removed.

Processes Running in a Branded Zone

Branded zones provide a set of interposition points in the kernel that are only applied to processes executing in a branded zone.

• These points are found in such paths as the syscall path, the process loading path, and the thread creation path.

• At each of these points, a brand can choose to supplement or replace the standard Solaris behavior.

A brand can also provide a plug-in library for librtld_db. The plug-in library allows Solaris tools such as the debugger, described in mdb(1), and DTrace, described in dtrace(1M), to access the symbol information of processes running inside a branded zone.

Branded Zone Device Support

The devices supported by each zone are documented in the man pages and other documentation for that brand. Device support is defined by the brand. A brand can choose to disallow the addition of any unsupported or unrecognized devices.

Branded Zone File System Support

The file systems required for a branded zone are defined by the brand.

Privileges in a Branded Zone

The privileges available in a branded zone are defined by the brand. For more information about privileges, see Privileges in a Non-Global Zone and Configurable Privileges in an lx Branded Zone.