Attached is a proposal for native-brand zone p2v that
I am planning to submit for ARC review soon. I'd like
to hear any comments about this.
Thanks,
Jerry
---
SUMMARY:
This fast-track enhances the Solaris Zones [1] subsystem to address an
existing RFE [2] requesting a "physical to virtual" (or p2v) capability
for installing native-branded zones based on an existing system image.
This capability is very similar to what already exists for solaris8 and
solaris9 branded zones [3,4], which are installed using an archive of an
existing system image, but in this case there is no brand module and the
zone brand is 'native'.
Patch binding is requested for this native p2v capability. The
stability of these interfaces is documented in the interface table below.
DETAILS:
This new feature is primarily an extension to the native-brand zone
installation code so that the zone can be installed using an archive of a
system, as is already done with the solaris8 and solaris9 brands.
However, because there is no brand module, part of the installation process
uses the zone "update on attach" [5] feature to sync the zone image up
so that it is usable on the system. Because "update on attach" does not
allow zone downgrades, the system image being installed and p2v-ed must not
be newer than the host OS release or the installation will fail with an
error.
In addition to the "update on attach" during zone installation, there are
a variety of other modifications which must be applied to the image so that
it is usable within a zone. Again, this is very similar to what happens
today with the solaris8 and solaris9 brands during installation.
The image modifications fall into the following areas:
1) SMF services that are not usable within a zone should be deleted or
disabled as necessary (for S8 and S9 we dealt with rc scripts instead).
2) Network configuration must be adjusted depending on if the zone is
shared-stack or exclusive.
3) NFS serving must be disabled [6].
4) The vfstab must be adjusted so that local file systems from the original
system are disabled.
5) Any zones installed on the original system will be uninstalled and
deleted from the image (zones do not nest).
All of these modifications happen transparently as part of the zone
installation, as is the case with the solaris8 and solaris9 brands.
The main user-visible interfaces are new native-brand zone installation
options. These options are the same as with the solaris8 and solaris9
brands.
The native brand installer will accept the following new arguments:
-a {path} - specifies a path to an archive to unpack into the zone
-d {path} - specifies a path to a tree of files as the source for the
installation.
-p - preserve system configuration (either -p or -u required).
-s - install silently
-u - sys-unconfig(1M) the zone after installing it
-v - verbose output from the install process
The -p, -s, -u and -v options are only allowed when -a or -d is
provided. If -a or -d is not given, then the zone is installed using the
existing mechanism.
As with the solaris8 and solaris9 brands, the archive can be a flar,
cpio (optionally compressed), UFS dump, or pax (xustar) format.
Also, as with the solaris8 and solaris9 brands, the zone must be configured
as a whole-root zone to be installed using a system image.
=== Interface Table ===
Exported Interfaces Stability
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For the native brand
brand-specific install options Committed
documented in this case
Imported Interfaces Stability
----------------------------------------------------------------------
flar(1m) Evolving
svccfg(1M), svcadm(1M) Evolving [7]
______________________________________________________________________________
REFERENCES
______________________________________________________________________________
1. PSARC 2002/174 Virtualization and Namespace Isolation in Solaris
2. 6667924 physical to virtual utility for native zones
3. PSARC/2007/350 Etude: Migration Technology
4. PSARC/2008/125 Etude Part Deux
5. PSARC/2007/621 zone update on attach
6. 4964859 RFE: Zones should be able to be NFS servers
7. PSARC 2002/547 Greenline
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