The on-disk configuration can be administered only from the global zone. Within the running zone, administration is limited to setting the runtime state, unless the zone has been booted writable. Thus, configuration changes made through the SMF commands described in the svcadm(1M) and svccfg(1M) man pages are only applicable to the temporary, live SMF database, not to the on-disk SMF database. Modifications made to the zone's MWAC configuration take effect when the zone is rebooted.
At initial installation or after updates, the zone boots transient read-write until it reaches the self-assembly-complete milestone. The zone then reboots in read-only mode.