A. Introduction

This document proposes the addition of a new environment variable
to smf_method(5) which describes the current zone[1] context of the
method.

This case seeks patch release binding, although we only have plans
to put it into a minor release at this time.

B. Interface Table

        Interface       Stability       Binding
      --------------------------------------------------
        SMF_ZONENAME    Evolving        Patch

C. Discussion

The Zones project added the undocumented _INIT_ZONENAME variable to
init(1m), but with the introduction of SMF, this variable was preserved
only for legacy RC scripts.

However, today there are still a large number of SMF method scripts of
the form:

	if [ "${_INIT_ZONENAME:=`/sbin/zonename`}" = "global" ]; then
		...
	fi

Discussions between the SMF I-team and Zones I-team resulted in this proposal
to make the current zonename available as the SMF_ZONENAME environment, which
slots into the SMF_* namespace described in smf_method(5).

The purpose of SMF_ZONENAME is to enable scripts to not call out to
/sbin/zonename, reducing the number of exec's during a typical boot
or a typical zone boot by roughly 30.

Scripts which today use _INIT_ZONENAME will be updated to use this new
variable.

D. Man Page Diffs

smf_method(5):

--- /tmp/xx     Tue Mar  7 13:05:00 2006
+++ /tmp/yy     Tue Mar  7 13:07:30 2006
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
      identical to those given here.

   Environment Variables
|     The restarter provides four  environment  variables  to  the
      method  that  determine  the  context in which the method is
      invoked.

...

|     SMF_ZONENAME   The name of the zone in which the method is
|                    running.  This can also be obtained
|                    by using the zonename(1) command.


E. References

1. <a href="../../2002/174">PSARC 2002/174</a> Virtualization and Namespace Isolation in Solaris OS