Zone create not installing all zone root files

Question

I'm installing a new T5240 Solaris 10 u6 10/08 with the 10_Recommended patch kit from 09 Dec 2008. The system is jumpstarted with /, /usr, /var, /export/home on SVM mirrored internal 146g drives. When I first got the server up and running, I tested zone creation with a default zone setup:
zonecfg -z test
create -b
set zonepath=/export/home/zones
set autoboot=true
add net
set physical=nxge0
set address=192.168.103.254
end
verify
commit
exit
zoneadm -z test install
Preparing to install zone <test>.
Creating list of files to copy from the global zone.
Copying <139100> files to the zone.
Initializing zone product registry.
Determining zone package initialization order.
Preparing to initialize <1164> packages on the zone.
This worked, so I removed it and continued with the server configuration:
The nxge0 interface has been configured with 802.1q vlan (nxge103000) and is successfully on the network. I configured MPX/IO on the pair of fp interfaces. I've added a disk from our HP EVA SAN array and created a ZFS pool and filesystem for the zoneroot, mounted at /opt/zones/zoneroots/oraprod1.
Now, when I try to recreate the test zone it now fails to copy all of the required files to the root, puts many errors into the install log about files changed in the global-zone root after installation and won't boot the zone past single-user maintenance mode.
The zone create now shows: (after adjusting the phys net i/f name)
bash-3.00# zoneadm -z test2 install
Preparing to install zone <test2>.
Creating list of files to copy from the global zone.
Copying <78> files to the zone.
Initializing zone product registry.
Determining zone package initialization order.
Preparing to initialize <1165> packages on the zone.
When I zlogin to the zone after it's booted into maint, it's obvious that many root fs files are missing - including
most of the SMF service manifests.
I've searched for forums, mailing lists and sun support knowledgebase without finding anything similar.
What am I missing?

Answer 1

Yes, I've reproduced the problem with and without the '-b' option on create, on UFS as well as ZFS filesystem and on /export/home/zones on the local drive.
My plan now is to walk thru the configuration process one step at a time, trying to create the zone at each step. I re-jumped the server last night and created the zone correctly. I then removed it, installed patches in single user, rebooted with "-r" and was able to recreate the zone. I've enabled mpxio and i can still create the zone. Next up tonight is to add the 802.1Q configuration, add the ZFS rootzone and run our custom scripts that to server hardening, user setup, etc.
There was one bug report that sounded "interesting" having to do with a patch set that wasn't zone-friendly as it left patch files in place w/o fixing the manifests so when the zone create ran it found files that didn't match the checksums or whatever is used to validate file correctness when copying files into the zone.
I'll keep updating this with my progress and findings.