image, since only the blocks different from a snapshot image need to be stored on disk; this method also makes it possible to create new zones in a few seconds. Branded zones Although all zones on the system share a common kernel, an additional feature set has been added called branded zones (BrandZ for short). This allows individual zones to behave in a manner other than the default brand of the global zone. The existing brands (October 2009) can be grouped into two categories: Brands which do not perform system call translation: 'native' is the default for Solaris 10 'ipkg' is the default for OpenSolaris, OpenIndiana, and OmniOS 'joyent' is the default for SmartOS 'cluster' is used for Solaris Cluster zones 'labeled' is used for zones in a Solaris Trusted Extensions environment Brands which perform system call translation: 'solaris8' provides a Solaris 8 environment on a Solaris 10 system, including translation from Solaris 8 system calls to Solaris 10 system calls (available only on SPARC systems) 'solaris9' provides a Solaris 9 environment on a Solaris 10 system, including translation from Solaris 9 system calls to Solaris 10 system calls (available only on SPARC systems) 'lx' provides a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 environment on a Solaris 10 system, including translation from RHEL 3 system calls to Solaris 10 system calls (available only on x86 systems). On SmartOS, lx brand zones can provide a runtime for most modern Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Alpine and others. LX support hasn't been upstreamed to illumos. 's10brand' provides a Solaris 10 environment on an OpenSolaris or Oracle Solaris 11 system, including translation from Solaris 10 system calls to OpenSolaris/Oracle Solaris 11 system calls 'solaris-kz' provides a separate Solaris 11.2 or newer instance, with its own kernel and independent packages, on an Oracle Solaris 11.2 or newer system. This feature was first available publicly in the Solaris 11.2 Beta (public download). The brand for a zone is set at the time the zone is created. The second category is implemented with interposition points within the OS kernel that can be used to change the behavior of syscalls, process loading, thread creation, and other elements. For the 'lx' brand, libraries from Red Hat 3 or an equivalent distribution such as CentOS are required to complete the emulated environment. Documentation The Solaris operating system provides man pages for Solaris Containers by default; more detailed documentation can