What is a Branded Zones ?

Branded zones(BrandZ) provides the framework to create non-global zones that contain non-native operating environments. This allows individual zones to emulate an OS environment other than the native one of the global OS. The brand for a zone is set at the time the zone is created, and is implemented with interposition points within the OS kernel that can be used to change the behavior of syscalls, process loading, thread creation, and other elements. Three brands that have been implemented are Solaris Containers for Linux Applications, Solaris 8 Containers, and Solaris 9 Containers.

Supported Brands based on architecture Solaris on Sparc

Solaris 8 full root only Solaris 9 full root only Solaris 10 sparse or full root Solaris 11/OpenSolaris sparse or full root

Solaris on Intel/AMD x86/x64 processors

Solaris 10 sparse or full root Solaris 11/OpenSolaris sparse or full root Linux full root only

o o o

Recent Intel/AMD chipsets CentOS 3.5 to 3.8 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.5 to 3.8 32-bit applications

We will see the procedure to install only Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 branded zones in this article.

Download and Install Container Packages

Download Solaris 8 or Solaris 9 branded container package from here

Solaris 8 Containers: s8containers-1_0-06-solaris10-sparc.tar.gz Solaris 9 Containers: s9containers-1_0-rr-solaris10-sparc.tar.gz

Solaris 8

Untar and install the container packages

#gunzip s8containers-1_0-06-solaris10-sparc.tar.gz #tar xvf s8containers-1_0-06-solaris10-sparc.tar

#pkgadd -d ./s8containers-1_0-06/Product SUNWs8brandr #pkgadd -d ./s8containers-1_0-06/Product SUNWs8brandu #pkgadd -d ./s8containers-1_0-06/Product SUNWs8p2v

Solaris 9

#gunzip s9containers-1_0-rr-solaris10-sparc.tar.gz #tar xvf s9containers-1_0-rr-solaris10-sparc.tar #pkgadd -d ./s9containers-1_0-rr/Product SUNWs9brandk #pkgadd -d ./s9containers-1_0-rr/Product SUNWs9brandr #pkgadd -d ./s9containers-1_0-rr/Product SUNWs9brandu

Download and Install Container Patches Solaris 8

you can download Solaris 8 patch from here and install it using patchadd

Solaris 9

you can download Solaris 9 patch from here and install it using patchadd

Create/download flar image You can create flar image from an existing Solaris 8 or 9 server using flarcreate command or Download example solaris 8 or 9 flar images from here (you should have been downloaded this in Install package step already

Create branded zones # mkdir -p /zones/testzone #chmod 700 /zones/testzone

# zonecfg -z testzone

testzone: No such zone configured Use 'create' to begin configuring a new zone.

zonecfg:testzone> create -t SUNWsolaris9 or zonecfg:testzone> create -t SUNWsolaris8

# to create solaris9 branded zone

# to create solaris8 branded zone

zonecfg:testzone> set zonepath=/zones/testzone

zonecfg:testzone> set autoboot=true

zonecfg:testzone> add net

zonecfg:testzone:net> set address=[provide ip here]

zonecfg:testzone:net> set physical=[provide interface name here]

zonecfg:testzone:net> end

zonecfg:testzone> commit zonecfg:testzone> exit