Upgrading With Non-Global Zones
After the Oracle Solaris OS is installed, you can install and configure non-global
zones. You can upgrade the Oracle Solaris OS when non-global zones are installed.
If you have branded non-global zones installed, they are ignored during the upgrade
process. Installation programs that can accommodate systems that have non-global zones installed are
summarized below.
Note - Starting with the Solaris 10 10/09 release, zones parallel patching enhances the standard Oracle Solaris 10 patch utilities. This feature
improves zones patching performance by patching non-global zones in parallel.
The global zone is still patched before the non-global zones are patched.
For releases prior to the Solaris 10 10/09 release, this feature is delivered in the following patch utilities patches:
For more information, see the following documentation:
Table 8-1 Choosing an Installation Program to Upgrade With Non-Global Zones
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Live Upgrade |
You can upgrade or patch a system that contains
non-global zones. If you have a system that contains non-global zones, Live
Upgrade, a feature of Oracle Solaris, 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 Live Upgrade,
you do not have to take the system to single-user mode and
you can maximize your system's uptime. Starting with the Solaris 10 8/07 release, changes to accommodate systems that have
non-global zones installed are the following:
A new package, SUNWlucfg, is required to be installed with the other Live Upgrade packages, SUNWlur and SUNWluu.
Creating a new boot environment from the currently running boot environment remains the same with one exception. You can specify a destination slice for a shared file system within a non-global zone. This exception occurs under the following circumstances:
If on the current boot environment the zonecfg add fs command was used that created a separate file system for a non-global zone
If this separate file system resides on a shared file system, such as /zone/root/export
To prevent this separate file system from being shared in the new boot environment, the lucreate command has changed to enable specifying 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. For more information on setting up a non-global zone with a separate file system, see zonecfg(1M).
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Live Upgrade continued |
Note - By default, any file system other than
the critical file systems (root (/), /usr, and /opt file systems) is shared between
the current and new boot environments. Updating shared files in the active boot
environment also updates data in the inactive boot environment. The /export file system
is an example of a shared file system. If you use the -m
option and the zonename option, the non-global zone's shared file system is copied
to a separate slice and data is not shared. This option prevents
non-global zone file systems that were created with the zonecfg add fs command from being shared
between the boot environments.
Additional changes, starting with the Solaris 10/8/07 release,
that accommodate systems with non-global zones installed include the following:
Comparing boot environments is enhanced. The lucompare command now generates a comparison of boot environments that includes the contents of any non-global zone.
The lumount command now provides non-global zones with access to their corresponding separate 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 mounted for non-global zones as well.
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.
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Oracle Solaris interactive installation program
GUI |
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. |
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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. |
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Limitations when upgrading with non-global zones are listed in the following table.
Table 8-2 Limitations When Upgrading With Non-Global Zones
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Consider these issues when using Live Upgrade on a system
with zones installed. It is critical to avoid zone state transitions during lucreate
and lumount operations. |
- When you use the lucreate command to create an inactive boot environment, if a given non-global zone is not running, then the zone cannot be booted until the lucreate operation has completed.
When you use the lucreate command to create an inactive boot environment if a given non-global zone is running, the zone should not be halted or rebooted until the lucreate operation has completed.
When an inactive boot environment is mounted with the lumount command, you cannot boot non-global zones or reboot them, although zones that were running before the lumount operation can continue to run.
Because a non-global zone can be controlled by a non-global zone administrator as well as by the global zone administrator, to prevent any interaction, halt all zones during lucreate or lumount operations.
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Problems can occur when the global zone administrator does not
notify the non-global zone administrator of an upgrade with Live Upgrade. |
When Live Upgrade operations
are underway, non-global zone administrator involvement is critical. The upgrade affects the work
of the administrators, who will be addressing the changes that occur as a
result of the upgrade. Zone administrators should ensure that any local packages are
stable throughout the sequence, handle any post-upgrade tasks such as configuration file adjustments,
and generally schedule around the system outage. For example, if a non-global zone
administrator adds a package while the global zone administrator is copying the file
systems with the lucreate command, the new package is not copied with
the file systems and the non-global zone administrator is unaware of the problem. |
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Flash
Archives cannot be used with non-global zones. |
A Flash Archive cannot be properly
created when a non-global zone is installed. The Flash feature is not compatible
with Oracle Solaris Zones partitioning technology. If you create a Flash Archive, the
resulting archive is not installed properly when the archive is deployed under
these conditions:
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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:
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. |
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Backing Up Your System Before Performing an Upgrade With Zones
You should back up the global and non-global zones on your Oracle
Solaris system before you perform the upgrade. For information about backing up a
system with zones installed, see Chapter 27, Solaris Zones Administration (Overview), in System Administration Guide: Oracle Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Oracle Solaris Zones.