Solaris 10 sparse zones

1. set inherit-pkg-dir on /opt/csw
2. install OpenCSW packages in the global zone

When inherited by non-global zones, /opt/csw is read-only. Two directories that might need local (per-zone) modifications are etc and var. Instead of using /opt/csw/etc and /opt/csw/var (which are read-only), we use /var/opt/csw and /etc/opt/csw instead.

Most packages built after July 2010 support local var.

Keep all your zones running when installing packages. Otherwise class action scripts won’t have a chance to run and you’ll end up with a broken installation, e.g. missing configuration files.

Create users in advance. Some packages create users on installation, if these users don’t exist already. Users are created by name, without controlling what UIDs they get. If you want to keep UIDs of these users consistent across all zones, create your users in advance.

Sparse zone with shared /usr

You need to install cswclassutils scripts (CSWcas-*) in the global zone.

Otherwise your setup won’t work with OpenCSW packages, because the CSWcas-* package family installs class action scripts into /usr. See the cswclassutils wants to write in /usr thread for more information.

Local mount hack (unsupported)

If you’re using a package which wasn’t configured to use /etc/opt/csw and/or /var/opt/csw but you still need to have per-zone changes, you can mount your own, writable /opt/csw/etc on top of the read only /opt/csw:

# /etc/vfstab entries
/path/to/your/local/etc - /opt/csw/etc lofs - yes -
/path/to/your/local/var - /opt/csw/var lofs - yes -

This is only a hack that might help you with a legacy package, it’s not a supported way of using OpenCSW packages.