Prior to the 4.4 release of Oracle Solaris Cluster (OSC), it was not possible to perform automatic public network configuration for  Exclusive-IP Zone Cluster (ZC) by specifying a System Configuration (SC) profile to the clzonecluster 'install' command.

To illustrate this let us consider installation of a typical ZC  with a separate IP stack and two data-links to achieve network redundancy needed to run HA services. The data-links which are vnics previously created in the global zone are configured as part of an IPMP group that is needed to host the LogicalHostname or SharedAddress resource IP address. The zone cluster was configured as shown by the clzc 'export' command output below.

root@clusterhost1:~# clzc export zc1
create -b
set zonepath=/zones/zc1
set brand=solaris
set autoboot=false
set enable_priv_net=true
set enable_scalable_svc=false
set file-mac-profile=none
set ip-type=exclusive
add net
set address=192.168.10.10
set physical=auto
end
add attr
set name=cluster
set type=boolean
set value=true
end
add node
set physical-host=clusterhost1
set hostname=zc1-host-1
add net
set physical=vnic3
end
add net
set physical=vnic0
end
add privnet
set physical=vnic1
end
add privnet
set physical=vnic2
end
end
add node
set physical-host=clusterhost2
set hostname=zc1-host-2
add net
set physical=vnic3
end
add net
set physical=vnic0
end
add privnet
set physical=vnic1
end
add privnet
set physical=vnic2
end
end

In OSC 4.3, after installing the ZC with a SC profile and booting it up, ZC will be in Online Running state but without the public network configuration.  The following ipadm(1M) commands are needed to set up the static network configuration in each non-global zone of the ZC.

root@zc1-host-1:~# ipadm create-ip vnic0
root@zc1-host-1:~# ipadm create-ip vnic3
root@zc1-host-1:~# ipadm create-ipmp -i vnic0 -i vnic3 sc_ipmp0
root@zc1-host-1:~# ipadm create-addr -T static -a 192.168.10.11/24 sc_ipmp0/v4

root@zc1-host-2:~# ipadm create-ip vnic0
root@zc1-host-2:~# ipadm create-ip vnic3
root@zc1-host-2:~# ipadm create-ipmp -i vnic0 -i vnic3 sc_ipmp0
root@zc1-host-2:~# ipadm create-addr -T static -a 192.168.10.12/24 sc_ipmp0/v4

In OSC 4.4 it is now possible to build a SC profile such that no manual steps will be required to complete the network configuration and all the zones of the ZC can boot up to "Online Running" state upon first boot of the ZC.

How is this made possible in OSC 4.4 on Solaris 11.4?

Well, the clzonecluster(8CL) command can recognize sections of the SC profile XML that are applicable for individual zones of the ZC by inserting these sections within the <instances_for_node node_name="ZCNodeName"></instances_for_node> XML tags. Other sections of the SC profile that are not within these XML tags are applicable for all the zones of the ZC.

Solaris 11.4 now supports arbitrarily complex network configurations in SC profiles. The following is a snippet of the SC profile that can be used for our typical ZC configuration that is derived from the template /usr/share/auto_install/sc_profiles/ipmp_network.xml. The section of the SC profile which is common for all the zones of the ZC has not been included in this snippet.

<instances_for_node node_name="zc1-host-1">
<service version="1" name="system/identity">
      <instance enabled="true" name="node">
        <property_group name="config">
           <propval name="nodename" value="zc1-host-1"/>
        </property_group>
      </instance>
    </service>
    <service name="network/ip-interface-management" version="1" type="service">
      <instance name="default" enabled="true">
        <property_group name="interfaces" type="application">
          <!-- vnic0 interface configuration -->
          <property_group name="vnic0" type="interface-ip">
            <property name="address-family" type="astring">
              <astring_list>
                <value_node value="ipv4"/>
                <value_node value="ipv6"/>
              </astring_list>
            </property>
            <propval name="ipmp-interface" type="astring" value="sc_ipmp0"/>
          </property_group>
          
          <!-- vnic3 interface configuration -->
          <property_group name="vnic3" type="interface-ip">
            <property name="address-family" type="astring">
              <astring_list>
                <value_node value="ipv4"/>
                <value_node value="ipv6"/>
              </astring_list>
            </property>
            <propval name="ipmp-interface" type="astring" value="sc_ipmp0"/>
          </property_group>
          <!-- IPMP interface configuration -->
          <property_group name="sc_ipmp0" type="interface-ipmp">
            <property name="address-family" type="astring">
              <astring_list>
                <value_node value="ipv4"/>
                <value_node value="ipv6"/>
              </astring_list>
            </property>
            <property name="under-interfaces" type="astring">
              <astring_list>
                <value_node value="vnic0"/>
                <value_node value="vnic3"/>
              </astring_list>
            </property>
            <!-- IPv4 static address -->
            <property_group name="data1" type="address-static">
              <propval name="ipv4-address" type="astring" value="192.168.10.11"//>
              <propval name="prefixlen" type="count" value="24"/>
              <propval name="up" type="astring" value="yes"/>
            </property_group>
          </property_group>
        </property_group>
      </instance>
    </service>
<instances_for_node node_name="zc1-host-2">
    <service version="1" name="system/identity">
      <instance enabled="true" name="node">
        <property_group name="config">
           <propval name="nodename" value="zc1-host-2"/>
        </property_group>
      </instance>
    </service>
    <service name="network/ip-interface-management" version="1" type="service">
      <instance name="default" enabled="true">
        <property_group name="interfaces" type="application">
          <!-- vnic0 interface configuration -->
          <property_group name="vnic0" type="interface-ip">
            <property name="address-family" type="astring">
              <astring_list>
                <value_node value="ipv4"/>
                <value_node value="ipv6"/>
              </astring_list>
             </property>
            <propval name="ipmp-interface" type="astring" value="sc_ipmp0"/>
          </property_group>
          <!-- vnic0 interface configuration -->
          <property_group name="vnic3" type="interface-ip">
            <property name="address-family" type="astring">
              <astring_list>
                <value_node value="ipv4"/>
                <value_node value="ipv6"/>
              </astring_list>
            </property>
            <propval name="ipmp-interface" type="astring" value="sc_ipmp0"/>
          </property_group>
          <!-- IPMP interface configuration -->
          <property_group name="sc_ipmp0" type="interface-ipmp">
            <property name="address-family" type="astring">
              <astring_list>
                <value_node value="ipv4"/>
                <value_node value="ipv6"/>
              </astring_list>
            </property>
            <property name="under-interfaces" type="astring">
              <astring_list>
                <value_node value="vnic0"/>
                <value_node value="vnic3"/>
              </astring_list>
            </property>
            <!-- IPv4 static address -->
            <property_group name="data1" type="address-static">
              <propval name="ipv4-address" type="astring" value="192.168.10.12"//>
              <propval name="prefixlen" type="count" value="24"/>
              <propval name="up" type="astring" value="yes"/>
            </property_group>
          </property_group>
        </property_group>
      </instance>
    </service>
</instances_for_node>

You can find the complete SC profile here. Some fields like zone host name, IP and encrypted passwords needs to be substituted in this file. Other changes can be made to this profile for different configuration for e.g, configuring an Active-Standby IPMP group instead of Active-Active IPMP configuration shown in this example.

We can use this SC profile to install and boot our ZC as shown below.

root@clusterhost1:~# clzc install -c /var/tmp/zc1_config.xml zc1
Waiting for zone install commands to complete on all the nodes of the zone cluster "zc1"...

root@clusterhost1:~# clzc boot zc1
Waiting for zone boot commands to complete on all the nodes of the zone cluster "zc1"...

After a short duration, we will see the ZC in Online Running state.

root@clusterhost1:~# clzc status zc1
=== Zone Clusters ===
--- Zone Cluster Status ---
Name   Brand     Node Name   Zone Host Name   Status   Zone Status
----   -----     ---------   --------------   ------   -----------
zc1    solaris   clusterhost1 zc1-host-1       Online   Running
                 clusterhost2 zc1-host-2       Online   Running

root@zc1-host-1:~# ipadm
NAME              CLASS/TYPE STATE        UNDER      ADDR
clprivnet1        ip         ok           --         --
clprivnet1/?      static     ok           --         172.16.3.65/26
lo0               loopback   ok           --         --
lo0/v4            static     ok           --         127.0.0.1/8
lo0/v6            static     ok           --         ::1/128
sc_ipmp0          ipmp       ok           --         --
sc_ipmp0/data1    static     ok           --         192.168.10.11/24
vnic0             ip         ok           sc_ipmp0   --
vnic1             ip         ok           --         --
vnic1/?           static     ok           --         172.16.3.129/26
vnic2             ip         ok           --         --
vnic2/?           static     ok           --         172.16.3.193/26
vnic3            ip         ok           sc_ipmp0   --

root@zc1-host-2:~# ipadm
NAME              CLASS/TYPE STATE        UNDER      ADDR
clprivnet1        ip         ok           --         --
clprivnet1/?      static     ok           --         172.16.3.66/26
lo0               loopback   ok           --         --
lo0/v4            static     ok           --         127.0.0.1/8
lo0/v6            static     ok           --         ::1/128
sc_ipmp0          ipmp       ok           --         --
sc_ipmp0/data1    static     ok           --         192.168.10.12/24
vnic0             ip         ok           sc_ipmp0   --
vnic1             ip         ok           --         --
vnic1/?           static     ok           --         172.16.3.130/26
vnic2             ip         ok           --         --
vnic2/?           static     ok           --         172.16.3.194/26
vnic3            ip         ok           sc_ipmp0    --

With this feature it is easy to create templates for SC profiles and can be used for fast deployments of ZC's without the need for administrator intervention to complete system configuration of the zones in the ZC.

For more details on the SC profile configuration in 11.4 refer to Customizing Automated Installations With Manifests and Profiles.

For cluster documentation refer to clzonecluster(8cl).