Upgrading the Solaris OS When Non-Global Zones Are Installed

Starting with the Solaris 10 7/07 HW release, you can upgrade the Solaris OS when non-global zones are installed without most of the limitations found in releases prior to Solaris 10 7/07 HW.

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, with CDs and DVDs. Or you can use a network installation image for either the CDs or DVDs. Previously, you were limited to upgrading with a DVD. 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. In releases prior to Solaris 10 7/07 HW, only a limited number of keywords could be used. 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.

  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. You can specify a destination disk slice for a shared file system within a non-global zone.

    The argument to the -m option has a new optional field, zonename. The new zonename field enables creating the new boot environment and specifying zones that contain separate file systems. This argument places the zone's separate file system on a separate slice in the new boot environment.

  • 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.

  • 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.

A Solaris system that is configured with Trusted Extensions requires extra steps to upgrade labeled zones. For information on this procedure, see Upgrading a Trusted Extensions System That is Configured with Labeled Zones under Installation Enhancements in Solaris 10 7/07 Release Notes.