Getting Solaris 11.4 using Zones running in VMWare with networking

UNIX Solaris
1

I saw some posts on this, so will copy an answer here:

The problem is NGZ use multiple MAC addresses on the same NIC, in which traffic never leaves the NIC port. You need to get Solaris 11 in net0 in promiscuous mode and VMware Fusion or other. Here are the steps. I think this will be an issue for VirtualBox as well.

Log into GZ:

# dladm create-bridge bridge
# dladm create-etherstub switch0
# dladm set-linkprop -p mtu=1500 switch0
# dladm add-bridge -l switch0 bridge
# dladm add-bridge -l net0 bridge
# dladm create-vnic -l net0  vnet0
# dladm create-vnic -l net0  vnet1

In VMware Fusion: "modify the virtual machine's configuration file (.vmx). Specifically, you need to add 'ethernet[#].noPromisc = "FALSE"' for each network adapter you want in promiscuous mode, replacing [#] with the adapter number". Note, there will be a dialog asking you to type in your admin password on MacOS for access to monitor networking traffic, you need to follow this step and enter it to get into promiscuous mode on the virtual adapter.

Some background:

Whenever you create two or more VNICs on the same physical port, a virtual switch will be created at the MAC layer.

The effect of the creation of the virtual switch is that traffic between those VNICs is switched at the MAC layer. It does not need to leave via the physical NIC to be switched by some external piece of hardware. As long as the VNICs share the same physical NIC, and are on the same VLAN, this MAC layer virtual switch can be employed.

2

Please explain clearly what you are trying to do and on what platform?

A normal Solaris configuration configures the Global Zone to use an ethernet interface. Then, non-Global zones can use a separate network interface (if one exists on the hardware) or share the same interface that the Global zone is using; thereby configuring multiple IP addresses on that interface. Although it is possible to "spoof" a MAC address to overwrite the in-built MAC address of the interface (or add-in card), I am unaware of a network interface being able to run with multiple MAC addresses on the same interface.

Yes, Solaris 11.4 can be configured to create a bridge between the Global and non-Global zones so that traffic does not pass over the LAN but directly between the two.

You need to explain what you are trying to do. I assume we are talking Solaris x86 here (NOT Solaris SPARC)?

  1. So what is the bare-metal platform?
  2. So what is the operating system running on that bare-metal?
  3. You then have a virtualisation layer on top; VMware or VirtualBox? Or what?
  4. You then have guest operating systems??

You have MacOS in the mix here? How?

  1. One of the guest operating systems is Solaris 11.4?
  2. On top of all this you want to run Solaris non-Global zones in this virtualised environment? i.e. virtuals within virtuals; is that right??

Please clarify to give us a clue here rather than us using our crystal ball.