Container Types

When creating a new container definition, you must select the project type. A project is a network-wide administrative identifier (ID) for related work. All processes running in a container have the same project ID, and a container tracks the resources being used with the project ID. The container type is based on which project-type is selected when creating the container definition. For more information about projects and resource management, see “Projects and Tasks” in System Administration Guide: Resource Management and Network Services.

Every container definition has a project name that is a permanent part of its information. When a container is activated on a host, this project name is added to that host's /etc/project file. This entry remains as long as the container is active on that host.

It is not possible to have two containers with the same project name active on a host at the same time. This is because processes running in a container are tracked with the project ID, so every project name on a host must be unique.

When creating user and group-based containers, the user or group name becomes part of the project name. For user-based containers, the project name becomes user.username. For group-based containers, the project name becomes group.groupname. Therefore, when creating user or group-based containers, you cannot use a user or group name that duplicates the /etc/project entries for the default containers. For more information, see Default Containers.

You provide a project name of your choosing as part of the creation process for application-based containers. The Container Creation wizard will accept duplicate project names for different application-based container definitions. But two application-based containers that have the same project name cannot be active on the same host at the same time. If you want to reuse project names when creating application-based containers, do this only if you plan to activate these containers on different hosts. If you try to activate a second container on a host that already has an active container with the identical project name, the activation will fail.

The following table provides details about the three project types available and what changes occur based on the selection.