This installation enhancement is new in the Developer 2/07 release.
Starting with this release, you can upgrade the Solaris OS when non-global zones are installed.
The only limitation to upgrading involves a Solaris Flash archive. When you use a Solaris Flash archive to install, an archive that contains non-global zones is not properly installed on your system.
The following changes accommodate systems that have non-global zones installed:
For the Solaris interactive installation program, you can upgrade or patch a system when non-global zones are installed. The time to upgrade or patch might be extensive, depending on the number of non-global zones that are installed.
For an automated JumpStart installation, you can upgrade or patch with any keyword that applies to an upgrade or patching. The time to upgrade or patch might be extensive, depending on the number of non-global zones that are installed.
For Solaris Live Upgrade, you can upgrade or patch a system that contains non-global zones. If you have a system that contains non-global zones, Solaris Live Upgrade is the recommended upgrade program or program to add patches. Other upgrade programs might require extensive upgrade time, because the time required to complete the upgrade increases linearly with the number of installed non-global zones. If you are patching a system with Solaris Live Upgrade, you do not have to take the system to single-user mode and you can maximize your system's uptime.
Solaris Live Upgrade creates a copy of the OS on the inactive boot environment. The inactive boot environment can be upgraded or patched when non-global zones are installed. The inactive boot environment can then be booted to become the new boot environment. The following changes accommodate systems that have non-global zones installed:
A new package, SUNWlucfg, must be installed with the other Solaris Live Upgrade packages, SUNWlur and SUNWluu. This package is required for any system, not just a system with non-global zones installed.
These three packages contain the software needed to upgrade by using Solaris Live Upgrade. These packages include existing software, new features, and bug fixes. If you do not install these packages on your system before using Solaris Live Upgrade, upgrading to the target release fails.
Creating a new boot environment from the currently running boot environment remains the same with one exception. This exception occurs under the following circumstances:
If in the current boot environment the zonecfg add fs command was used to create a separate file system for a non-global zone
If this separate file system resides on a shared file system. For example, /zone/root/export
To prevent this separate file system from being shared in the new boot environment, the lucreate command now enable you to specify a destination slice for a separate file system for a non-global zone. The argument to the -m option has a new optional field, zonename. This new field places the non-global zone's separate file system on a separate slice in the new boot environment.
By default, any file system other than the critical file systems, that is, root (/), /usr, and /opt file systems, is shared between the current and new boot environments. The /export file system is a shared file system. If you use the -m option, the non-global zone's file system is placed on a separate slice and data is not shared. The -m option prevents zone file systems that were created with the zonecfg add fs command from being shared between the boot environments. See zonecfg(1M) for details.
In this example, a new boot environment named newbe is created. The root (/) file system is copied to c0t1d0s4. All non-global zones in the current boot environment are copied to the new boot environment. The non-global zone named zone1 contains a file system that resides on a separate slice in a shared file system such as /zone1/root/export. To prevent this file system from being shared, the file system is copied to a separate slice on newbe, c0t1d0s1.
# lucreate -n newbe -m /:/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s4:ufs \ -m /export:/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s1:ufs:zone1 |
The lumount command provides non-global zones with access to their corresponding file systems that exist on inactive boot environments. When the global zone administrator uses the lumount command to mount an inactive boot environment, the boot environment is also mounted for non-global zones.
Comparing boot environments is enhanced. The lucompare command now generates a comparison of boot environments that includes the contents of any non-global zone.
Listing file systems with the lufslist command is enhanced to display a list of file systems for both the global zone and the non-global zones.
For step-by-step procedures for upgrading a system with non-global zones installed or for information about the Solaris Zones partitioning technology, see the following references:
Description |
For More Information |
---|---|
Upgrading with Solaris Live Upgrade on a system with non-global zones | |
Creating and using non-global zones |
System Administration Guide: Virtualization Using the Solaris Operating System |
Upgrading with JumpStart |
Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations |
Upgrading with the Solaris installation interactive GUI |