Use the pkg variant command to display the values of variants that are set.
$ pkg variant VARIANT VALUE variant.arch i386 variant.opensolaris.zone global
The -v option includes the possible variant values that can be set for installed packages.
$ pkg variant -v VARIANT VALUE variant.arch i386 variant.arch sparc variant.debug.osnet false variant.debug.osnet true variant.opensolaris.zone global variant.opensolaris.zone nonglobal
Use the pkg change-variant command to change the value of a variant. Use the pkg variant -v command to select a value to set.
The following command produces a large amount of output because so many packages would be affected. Notice that a new BE would not be created by default, but a backup BE would be created. See Boot Environment Policy Image Properties for information about when BEs are created. The -n option shows what would change if you performed the operation without -n, but the command makes no actual changes.
$ pkg change-variant -nv --accept 'variant.debug.*=true'
Packages to update: 851
Variants/Facets to change: 3
Estimated space available: 49.88 GB
Estimated space to be consumed: 270.57 MB
Create boot environment: No
Create backup boot environment: Yes
Rebuild boot archive: No
Changed variants/facets:
variant variant.debug.*: true
facet facet.locale.en_US: None
facet facet.locale.*: None
Changed packages:
solaris
...