Description

What are Containers ?

Solaris 8 Containers (formerly known as the Solaris 8 Migration Assistant) and Solaris 9 Containers are virtualized environments that enable Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 applications to run in Containers on Solaris 10. Customers can move an existing Solaris 8 (or Solaris 9) application and entire environment into a Container on a Solaris10 system. Sun offers an optional assessment and implementation engagement from Professional Services to help customers assess applications, install the software, build the Container, and provide the help during testing.

  *  Solaris 8 Containers is a tool that helps migrate applications from Solaris 8 to Solaris 10 on SPARC-based systems. This tool requires Solaris 10 8/07 (or newer) with the BrandZ technology and kernel patches that customize BrandZ for Solaris 8. There are 3 software components associated with this tool:

   1. Archiver : The Archiver archives the Solaris 8 or Solaris 9 disk image
   2. Updater: The Updater tool is a P2V tool that modifies the archive of the physical Solaris 8 system so that it can run in a Container
   3. Solaris 8 Container: The environment which runs the Solaris 8 environment as if it were still on the original system

  * Solaris 8 (and 9) Containers are available via download for free.
  * Solaris 8 Containers are best suited to well-behaving user land applications that do not touch the kernel and do not have special requirements such as the ability for the application to change an IP address on the fly.

Please be aware customers need to be entitled to get support for Solaris 8 or 9 Containers  as clearly stated in:
 http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/containers/support.jsp
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/containers/getit.jsp



Versions

Solaris 8 Containers, formerly known as Solaris 8 Migration Assistant, software allows you to run Solaris 8 applications, unchanged, on the latest SPARC systems and Solaris 10.

    •    Get Solaris 8 Containers

Solaris 9 Containers software allows you to run Solaris 9 applications, unchanged, on the latest SPARC systems and Solaris 10.

    •    Get Solaris 9 Containers

Solaris 10 branded zones on Open Solaris:

    •   Solaris 10 Branded Zone Developers Guide

    •    Jerry Jelinek's Weblog : zones p2v
   
About two years ago the zones team began to create the solaris8 brand for zones. This brand allows you to run your existing Solaris 8 system images inside of a branded zone on Solaris 10. One of the key goals for this project was to easily enable migration of Solaris 8 based systems into a zone on Solaris 10. To accomplish this, as part of the project we built support for a "physical to virtual" capability, or p2v for short. The idea with p2v is that you can create an image of an existing system using a flash archive, cpio archive, a UFS dump, or even just a file system image that is accessible over NFS, then install the zone using that image. There is no explicit p2v tool you have to run; behind the scenes the zone installation process does all of the work to make sure the Solaris 8 image runs correctly inside of the zone.



Compatibility/Patches

OSSPARCX86SYNOPSIS
5.8109147-44109148-425.8: linker patch(to be installed in branded zone)
5.10137749-01137750-015.8: df patch (to be installed in branded zone)
5.10137137-09137138-09Kernel Patch(to be installed in global zone)
5.10139944-015.10: brand patch(to be installed in global zone)
5.10140408-015.10: s8_brand.so.1 and s9_brand.so.1 patch(to be installed in global zone)



The Solaris 8 Containers software requires a SPARC system running Solaris 10 8/07 or later.
The following components are available for download:

1. Solaris 8 Containers Product Bundle

    The product media includes:

 Solaris 8 Containers 1.0.1
This version of the product is for systems running:
Solaris 10 10/08 or later with kernel patch 137137-09 or later

Important note:

Systems running Solaris 8 Containers 1.0 (or Solaris 8 Migration Assistant) also need to install the 1.0.1 product if they update to:
Solaris 10 10/08 or later iwth kernel patch 137137-09 or later

Solaris 8 Containers 1.0

This version of the product is for systems running:
Solaris 10 8/07 - Solaris patch 127111-01 or later is required
Solaris 10 5/08 with kernel patches: 127111-xx, 127127-xx, and 137111-xx.

A README file containing installation instructions for both versions.
The packages in this media bundle have been updated to include the latest fixes that are also available in the Solaris 8 Containers patch 128548-08.


The Solaris 9 Containers software requires a SPARC system running Solaris 10 8/07 or later.
The following components are available for download:

2. Solaris 9 Containers Product Bundle

The product media includes:

 Solaris 9 Containers 1.0.1

This version of the product is for systems running:
Solaris 10 10/08 or later with kernel patch 137137-09 or later

Solaris 9 Containers 1.0

This version of the product is for systems running:
Solaris 10 8/07 patch 127111-01 or later is required
Solaris 10 5/08 with kernel patches: 127111-xx, 127127-xx, 137111-xx

A README file containing installation instructions for both versions.
The packages in this media bundle have been updated to include the latest fixes that are also available in the Solaris 9 Containers patch 138899-01.

3. Example Solaris 9 System Image:
     A sample Solaris 9 flash archive image is also available for validation purposes


4. Product Documentation:
       For additional installation information, please consult the System Administration Guide:
       Solaris 9 Containers available at http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/820-4490



Information Gathering

Collect explorer from system:
 
# /opt/SUNWexplo/bin/explorer -w default,localzones



References

docs.sun.com: Get Solaris 8 / 9 Containers
docs.sun.com: Container Manager Software Description
docs.sun.com: System Administration Guide: Solaris 8 Containers
docs.sun.com: System Administration Guide: Solaris 9 Containers
docs.sun.com: System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones