Determine the Zone Host Name and the Network Requirements

You must determine the host name for the zone. Then, for a shared IP zone that will have network connectivity, you must do one of the following:

• Assign an IPv4 address for the zone

• Manually configure and assign an IPv6 address for the zone

Inside an exclusive-IP zone, you configure addresses as you do for the global zone.

For more information on exclusive-IP and shared-IP types, see Zone Network Interfaces

Zone Host Name

The zone host name is the zone equivalent of the system host name. The zonehost name is set in the global zone. The zone host name is typically set to the zone name and is typically defined in the zone's /etc/inet/hosts file as the official host name or a nickname for one of the zone's IP addresses. See nodename(4) and hosts(4) for more information.

If you use local files for the naming service, the hosts database is maintained in the /etc/inet/hosts file. The host names for zone network interfaces are resolved from the local hosts database in /etc/inet/hosts. Alternatively, for shared-IP zones, the IP address itself can be specified directly when configuring a zone so that no host name resolution is required.

For more information, see Network Configuration Files in Oracle Solaris Administration: IP Services and The name-service/switch SMF Service in Oracle Solaris Administration: IP Services.

Shared-IP Zone Network Address

Each shared-IP zone that requires network connectivity has one or more unique IP addresses. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are supported.

IPv4 Zone Network Address

If you are using IPv4, obtain an address and assign the address to the zone.

A prefix length can also be specified with the IP address. The format of this prefix is address/prefix-length, for example, 192.168.1.1/24. Thus, the address to use is 192.168.1.1 and the netmask to use is 255.255.255.0, or the mask where the first 24 bits are 1-bits.

If you use local files for the naming service, the hosts database is maintained in the /etc/inet/hosts file. The host names for zone network interfaces are resolved from the local hosts database in /etc/inet/hosts. Alternatively, for shared-IP zones, the IP address itself can be specified directly when configuring a zone so that no host name resolution is required.

For more information, see hosts(4), nodename(4), and Oracle Solaris Administration: IP Services.

IPv6 Zone Network Address

If you are using IPv6, you must manually configure the address. Typically, at least the following two types of addresses must be configured:

Link-local address

A link-local address is of the form fe80::64-bit interface ID/10. The /10 indicates a prefix length of 10 bits.

Address formed from a global prefix configured on the subnet

A global unicast address is based off a 64–bit prefix that the administrator configures for each subnet, and a 64-bit interface ID. The prefix can be obtained by running the ipadm show-addr command on any system on the same subnet that has been configured to use IPv6.

The 64–bit interface ID is typically derived from a system's MAC address. For zones use, an alternate address that is unique can be derived from the global zone's IPv4 address as follows:

16 bits of zero:upper 16 bits of IPv4 address:lower 16 bits of IPv4 address:a zone-unique number

For example, if the global zone's IPv4 address is 192.168.200.10, a suitable link-local address for a non-global zone using a zone-unique number of 1 is fe80::c0a8:c80a:1/10. If the global prefix in use on that subnet is 2001:0db8:aabb:ccdd/64, a unique global unicast address for the same non-global zone is 2001:0db8:aabb:ccdd::c0a8:c80a:1/64. Note that you must specify a prefix length when configuring an IPv6 address.

For more information about link-local and global unicast addresses, see the ipadm(1M) and inet6(7P) man pages.

Exclusive-IP Zone Network Address

Inside an exclusive-IP zone, configure addresses as you do for the global zone. Note that DHCP and IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration can be used to configure addresses.