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Solaris 11 : How to Verify Kernel Zone Support on a Host

by admin

What is a Solaris Kernel Zone

The solaris-kz brand uses the branded zones framework to run zones with a separate kernel and OS installation from that used by the global zone. A solaris-kz installation is independent of that of the global zone; it is not a pkg linked image and can be modified regardless of the global zone content. A solaris-kz zone can be installed in the same manner as other brands directly from the global zone, or via a boot media as described below.

When specifying a manifest for installation, the manifest used should be the one suitable for a global zone installation. As kernel zones
always install into a known location for the root pool, an installation target disk should not be specified.

If an AI manifest is used to install a different version of Solaris than the one that is installed in the global zone, the installation
must be performed using installation media that matches the version of Solaris being installed. A typical command line would resemble:

# zoneadm -z kzone1 install -b [ai.iso] -m [manifest.xml]

How to Verify Kernel Zone Support on a Host

Use the command “virtinfo” on the solaris host to know if it supports the Kernel Zones. For example:

# virtinfo
NAME CLASS 
non-global-zone supported 
kernel-zone supported                 ### Kernel zone is supported on the host

Below are some hardware and software pre-requisites for kernel zones.

SPARC systems

– A SPARC T4 system with at least System Firmware 8.5.1.
– A SPARC T5, SPARC M5, or SPARC M6 system with at least System Firmware 9.2.11
– A Fujitsu M10/SPARC M10 system with at least XCP Firmware 2230.

X86 systems

– Nehalem+ (Intel) or Barcelona+ (AMD) based x86 machines with CPU virtualization (for example, VT-x) enabled in the BIOS.
– Specifically, kernel zones on x86 require Extended/Nested Page Table support, also referred to as EPT, NPT, or RVI (Rapid Virtualization Indexing).

Hardware Requirement

In addition, both SPARC and x86 systems require the following:
– A minimum of 8 GB of physical RAM
– The kernel zone brand package software package, brand/brand-solaris-kz.

Filed Under: Solaris, Solaris 11, Zones

Some more articles you might also be interested in …

  1. Solaris Performance troubleshooting : Disk (I/O) performance issues
  2. A beginners guide to Veritas Dynamic Multipathing (VxDMP)
  3. How to create or change or view Boot Device Aliases in Solaris Online
  4. How to create and configure solaris 10 zones
  5. How to Use the Oracle Solaris Fast Crash Dump Feature
  6. How To Use ‘zpool split’ to Split rpool in solaris 11 (SPARC)
  7. How to identify the boot device (primary and alternate) in Solaris
  8. How To Read And Clear SCSI Reservations in Solaris 11 (sg3_utils)
  9. Solaris Zones : How To Change The Number Of CPUs Using Dynamic Resource Pools
  10. How to clone a solaris 11 zone

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