Solaris Zones Part 1

Version note (updated July 2026): This Solaris 10-era overview is retained for historical context. Solaris Zones share the global zone kernel; they are not a substitute for full-VM isolation. Verify current platform behavior and security boundaries before deployment.

So what is a zone?

A zone is analogous to a VMware machine but with some distinct advantages as well as some disadvantages. To start explaining zones lets start by comparing it to VMware since most people are familiar with VMware. VMware is a software program that runs on a host operating system,. This could be Windows, Linux, or a custom kernel in the VMware ESX series. VMware provides a hardware abstraction layer which it uses to create mini virtual computers. The advantages of this setup are as follows: You can create a custom virtual computer designed for the operating system and application you want to run. This means that you have a very high level of customizability which allows you to tailor the virtual machine to provide the best performance for the program you want to run. VMware also supports ? many different operating systems. You could run VMware on a Linux box and then run Windows 2003 in one virtual machine, and a FreeBSD NFS server in another. From the point of view of the guest operating systems, they believe they are on standalone hardware and are unaware of the host OS and other guest OSs which may be running.

ZFS filesystem on Solaris

Here is a flash video thanks to http://www.opensolaris.org, which I think explains some of the features of zfs very well. This video should have you wanting more! I am working on a comprehensive tutorial about zfs which should cover this great file system in more detail.

Blog Migrated

I just upgraded the blog, It has been migrated from a 800mhz FreeBSD based system to a 2ghz Sun Solaris 10 based system with ZFS storage. The web server is also running in its own isolated container/zone. In migrating I have decided not to import all of the old articles, Instead? I will go through them and pick the best ones to include here.

Stay Tuned More to come!

Laptop crashes when power source is changed fix

Version note (updated July 2026): This Mandrake 9.2 and Dell Inspiron 8000 troubleshooting note is archival. Do not apply its kernel-era assumptions to supported Linux distributions or hardware.

Like most people who have complained about this problem I had recently upgraded to mandrake 9.2 and was surprised by the lack of problems usually associated with upgrading distro’s. My surprise turned to horror when I realized the my laptop a Dell Inspiron 8000 would freeze as soon as I unplugged the a/c adapter or plugged in the a/c adapter.