NAME

lipkg — zone brand for running a full copy of OmniOS with linked packages

DESCRIPTION

The lipkg brand uses the brands(7) framework to provide an environment for running a full copy of Omnios, with system software packages linked to those installed in the global zone.

A linked-ipkg ( lipkg) zone is an extension of an ipkg(7) zone which has its installed software set linked to that within the global zone. By default, when performing a package update from the global zone, core system packages within lipkg zones are automatically updated at the same time. It is possible to extend this to upgrade all packages and to upgrade multiple lipkg zones in parallel via command line options or pkg properties.

A further benefit over ipkg(7) zones is that major version upgrades can be performed without having to detach and re-attach the zones.

Like ipkg(7) zones, lipkg zones can have multiple boot environments, created either locally within the zone or managed automatically from the global zone as BEs are created/destroyed there.

Even though the software image is linked to the global zone, it is perfectly possible to have a different set of packages installed in an lipkg zone as long as system consistency rules are met.

CONFIGURATION

Persistent network configuration (including DNS resolver information) can be configured using zonecfg(8). An example lipkg zone configured with VNIC "vnic0" using a static IP address is below:

create -t lipkg
set zonepath=/zones/testzone
set autoboot=true
add net
    set physical=vnic0
    set allowed-address=192.168.0.2/24
    set defrouter=192.168.0.1
    set global-nic=auto
end
add attr
    set name=dns-domain
    set type=string
    set value=example.com
end
add attr
    set name=resolvers
    set type=string
    set value=192.168.12.1,192.168.13.1
end

LIMITATIONS

lipkg zone boot environments are linked to the global zone boot environment under which they were created. This means that rolling back the global zone to a previous boot environment will also roll back the zone. For this reason, zone data which should be shared across boot environments should be allocated to a dedicated dataset.

SEE ALSO

brands(7), ipkg(7), privileges(7), resource_controls(7), zones(7), zfs(8), zoneadm(8), zonecfg(8)