An introduction to the products and features of HP-UX Containers

Container types

HP-UX Containers provides multiple container types. Each container type offers unique features, which allow

administrators to choose the container that best fits their workload requirements. The next section gives a brief

overview of each container type. For more information on system and workload containers, visit:

http://www.hp.com/go/virtualization-manuals.

For more information on HP 9000 containers, see the HP 9000 Containers Administrator’s Guide at:

http://www.hp.com/go/hp9000-containers.

System containers

System containers provide virtualization and private namespace capabilities that give users and applications the look

and feel of a private operating system instance. The unique namespace eases application deployment with out-of-the-box

implementations since it avoids name clashes that are common when consolidating workloads within one OS instance.

As with all container types, each system container has a private directory under /var/hpsrp. However, a process that

runs in a system container has its file system root set, using a secure chroot() at the containers private directory

(/var/hpsrp/$CONTAINER) instead of the system’s file system root (/). This allows each system container to have

their own copy of files that are accessed using the same file system path as other containers. For example, a system

container named sys1 would access its private passwd file using the standard path of /etc/passwd when that file’s

real path is /var/hpsrp/sys1/etc/passwd. System container sys2 would access its private passwd file using

/etc/passwd, which has a real path of /var/hpsrp/sys2/etc/passwd.

There are two types of file system layouts available for system containers (specified when you create a system

container):

• Shared: The container shares the /usr, /sbin, and /stand directories with the global (read-only)

• Private: The container only shares the /stand directory with the global (read-only); /usr and /sbin are private

(read/write) to the container.

See figure 3 for a detailed layout of a system container file system access.

Each system container has:

• A unique host and node name

• Local users and groups (including a local root user)

• Local NIS or LDAP domain

• Local password policies

• Local file system view (private or shared)

• Local system services (for example, init, sshd, pwgrd, syslogd, and inetd)

• Private network interface and IP address

• Private IPC namespace

• Local NFS Client and AutoFS support

Both system and workload containers are managed using the same tools, including the SRP Manager integrated with

SMH. Container management on HP-UX Containers v3 use the same commands and tools as HP-UX SRP v2, making

the transition from HP-UX SRP v2 to HP-UX Containers v3 easy for administrators.