SUMMARY:
This fast-track enhances the Solaris zones [1] subsystem to address
an existing RFE [2] requesting the ability to do dry-runs of zone
migration [3].
We will enhance the zone detach subcommand so that it can generate the
manifest without actually detaching the zone. We will enhance the zone
attach subcommand to read a manifest and validate the migration without
actually doing an attach.
Patch binding is requested for the new sub-command options and the
stability of these interfaces is "evolving".
DETAILS:
Overview
The zone migration PSARC case [3] describes the procedure for
migrating a zone from one machine to another.
The procedure for validating a migration with the new dry-run
feature is similar to a full migration. It involves the following
steps:
1. Generate the manifest on the source host. This leaves the zone on
the originating system in its current state (installed, running,
etc.). The zone manifest is sent to stdout. The sysadmin can
direct this to a file or pipe it to a remote command that will
immediately validate the target host.
2. If the sysadmin did not pipe the output, then the sysdmin
administrator copies the manifest to the new host system.
3. Validating the zone migration. This will validate that the host is
capable of supporting the zone. The validation is described in [3].
The zone does *not* have to be configured on the new host before
before doing the dry-run attach. In addition, we will validate
the zone configuration and inform the user of any issues (e.g. the
network device is incompatible).
New zoneadm sub-command options
We will add a '-n' option (no execute) to the zoneadm 'detach' and
'attach' subcommands.
The syntax for dry-run detaching a zone will be:
# zoneadm -z my-zone detach -n
The syntax for dry-run attaching a zone will be:
# zoneadm attach -n path_to_manifest
During the dry-run attach we perform the standard validation that
is normally done prior to a full attach as well as the validation of
the zone configuration. The path can be '-' to specify stdin.
EXAMPLE:
# zoneadm -z my-zone detach -n | ssh remotehost zoneadm attach -n -
EXPORTED INTERFACES:
New zoneadm subcommand options
detach [-n] Evolving
attach [-n path] Evolving
REFERENCES
1. PSARC 2002/174 Virtualization and Namespace Isolation in Solaris
2. 6401645 RFE: need support for pre-validating a zone migration
3. PSARC 2006/030 Zone migration