About Configuring Zone Properties

Zone properties and resources together define a zone's characteristics as a virtual machine.

After a zone is created, you can begin to set its resources and properties, even before the zone is installed. However, the more typical approach is to complete property and resource configuration after installation. This approach reduces the risk of installation failures due to prior errors in configuration. See How to Create and Deploy a Non-Global Zone.

When you are configuring a resource, the zone prompt identifies that resource scope, such as fs for file system properties, anet for automatic network interface properties, and so on.

Zone configuration has two modes:

Default

Use this mode for most of your configuration tasks. It enables you to configure persistent settings for any zone property and resource. The settings take effect when you boot or reboot the zone. However, for a zone that is already running, you can apply the settings without rebooting by issuing the zoneadm apply command.

Live

This mode can be used only on a running zone, and only to a subset of zone properties and resources, depending on the zone's brand. To know which resources and properties can be configured in this mode, refer to the zone brand's corresponding man page.

The changes take effect immediately after you commit them, and no zone reboot is necessary. However, the changes remain active only until the next zone reboot. Essentially, you use the live mode to make temporary changes.

Caution:

The zoneadm apply command behaves differently in this mode than what you might expect. This command loads the configuration that is in storage and cancels the active settings that you just committed. Thus, in live mode, you use zoneadm apply to nullify your temporary changes, if you do not want to reboot the zone.

As you set properties, the values are stored in memory. When you exit a zone configuration session, the settings are saved to stable storage and take effect according to the mode of configuration you use.

For more information, see the zonecfg(8) man page.