Jun
Qualifying Applications for Solaris Zones
Solaris Containers or Zones are lightweight virtual Solaris instances similar to a full Solaris OS instance but which share a single Solaris kernel. They are easy to provision, require only a small amount of incremental disk space, and can be rebooted as needed in seconds. Containers can also be cloned, detached, moved and reattached. In a blog by Michael O’Connor, he shares the advantages of combining multiple applications onto a single server using lightweight Solaris Containers versus hypervisors.
In a follow-up entry, he explains that in some rare cases, applications are unable to run in a local or non-global zone and should go through a qualification process to identify potential installation or runtime issues, especially if root permission is needed to install or run the application.
“Local zones operate with a reduced set of process privileges relative to the global zone. As a result, all processes running in a non-global zone also have reduced privilege and certain system calls may return errors,” O’Connor writes. “Again, 99% of applications will run just fine in non-global zones but it pays to take the time to fully qualify new or migrating services before attempting a production deployment.”
Resources for ISVs and system administrators interested in taking a more cautious entry into Solaris Zones:
