Will the NS Agent for Unix detect the Solaris zones?

Article:HOWTO3590  |  Created: 2006-05-16  |  Updated: 2006-08-29  |  Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO3590
Article Type
How To



Question
Will the NS Agent for Unix detect the Solaris zones? Will it be install on the physical server and be able to scan software on the other zones?

Answer
Currently, Inventory for Unix does not report zone information.



Following is an overview of Solaris Zones:

Introduction to Solaris Zones Software

The Solaris Zones feature is based on the same basic concepts as FreeBSD Jails. In both FreeBSD Jails and Solaris Zones, each virtual view of the runtime environment is completely segregated, and processes from one environment cannot send signals to or even see processes in another. Both Jails and Zones share only one instance of the operating system, though, so multiple runtime environments can coexist on a machine with only one CPU.

Two types of zones exist: global and non-global. A machine with the Solaris Zones feature enabled has one global zone and up to 8191 non-global zones. The maximum number of zones that a machine supports is dependent on the hardware resources available to the machine. Each zone has an ID assigned by the system when it's booted with the global zone, always listed as zone ID 0. Only the global zone contains a bootable Solaris kernel and is aware of all devices, file systems, and other zones. The global zone is also the only zone from which non-global zone configuration, installation, and management are possible.

Non-global zones contain a subset of the Solaris OS installed in the global zone and possibly additional packages not installed in the global zone. Each non-global zone has its own package database listing each software package installed relative to the zone and does not share package information with the global or other non-global zones. Non-global zones also contain localized configuration information and other zone-specific files and directories.

(Source: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/solaris_zones.html)


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