Creating a kernel zone on Solaris 11.4 inside a Solaris VM

Discussions about using Solaris guests in VirtualBox.
Post Reply
jdesousa
Posts: 3
Joined: 17. Feb 2022, 02:06

Creating a kernel zone on Solaris 11.4 inside a Solaris VM

Post by jdesousa »

Hi,

Can anyone advise what I need to do to enable the creation of a kernel zone in a Solaris 11.4 SRU42 VM running on Virtual Box 6.1 (6.1.32 r149290 (Qt5.6.2)) hosted on a Windows 11 system?

When I execute virtinfo in the VM I get the following output:

root@sol11-01:~# uname -a
SunOS sol11-01 5.11 11.4.42.113.1 i86pc i386 i86pc virtualbox
root@sol11-01:~# virtinfo
NAME CLASS
virtualbox current
non-global-zone supported
kernel-zone unsupported
root@sol11-01:~#

I have disabled hwvirtexclusive:

VBoxManage setproperty hwvirtexclusive off

My BIOS is set to SVM enabled - it's an AMD 5800X CPU on an X570 chipset motherboard (Asus Prime X570-Pro)
The VM is set to enable PAE/NX and Nested VT-x/AMD-V

Has anyone been able to get this to work please?

Many thanks,

John
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Creating a kernel zone on Solaris 11.4 inside a Solaris VM

Post by scottgus1 »

I have never even run a Solaris OS let alone know how to troubleshoot this, but...

A quick Google on what a Solaris Kernel Zone is leads me to believe it's a 'container', something like a Virtual Machine. Which means your setup is rather like Nested Virtualization.

Virtualbox only 'supports' Virtualbox VMs inside of a Virtualbox VM (though other kinds of hypervisor might work). Other hypervisors may not receive the full complement of support structures that they need to run nested in a Virtualbox VM. (Hyper-V suffers from this in a Windows Virtualbox VM, because Virtualbox in the host does not (yet) pass SLAT to the next level of VM).

Also, Hyper-V might be running on the Windows host, which could further complicate things.

Start the Virtualbox VM from full normal shutdown, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the VM from within the VM's OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the VM with the Power Off option set.

Right-click the VM in the main Virtualbox window's VM list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip it, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.
paulson
Oracle Corporation
Posts: 28
Joined: 6. Jun 2019, 20:16

Re: Creating a kernel zone on Solaris 11.4 inside a Solaris VM

Post by paulson »

Can anyone advise what I need to do to enable the creation of a kernel zone in a Solaris 11.4 SRU42 VM running on Virtual Box 6.1 (6.1.32 r149290 (Qt5.6.2)) hosted on a Windows 11 system?
I'm afraid this isn't going to work as per the official Solaris 11.4 Kernel Zones documentation:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37838_01/ht ... wreqs.html
Kernel zones cannot run in Oracle VM Server for x86 guests or in Oracle VM VirtualBox.
The command "VBoxManage setproperty hwvirtexclusive off" is to be run on Solaris hosts
where you have both kernel zones and VirtualBox running.
jdesousa
Posts: 3
Joined: 17. Feb 2022, 02:06

Re: Creating a kernel zone on Solaris 11.4 inside a Solaris VM

Post by jdesousa »

Ahh thanks for that, I hadn't spotted that in the docs, will have a play with it on my T4-1 instead,

Cheers,

John
Steffen M.
Posts: 17
Joined: 12. Sep 2013, 16:56

Re: Creating a kernel zone on Solaris 11.4 inside a Solaris VM

Post by Steffen M. »

jdesousa wrote:Ahh thanks for that, I hadn't spotted that in the docs, will have a play with it on my T4-1 instead,

Cheers,

John
Running Solaris 11.4 (SRU 42) with "normal" zones (i.e., non-global Solaris 11.4 zones sharing their kernels with their global Solaris zone) within VirtualBox should work, though. I've done this, before.

Kind regards,
Steffen
Post Reply