ah, that explains why i didn't get any output running the command in the zones, it was already applied :) guess that's what happens when you do things while tired

thanks for the explanations btw, i'm a new user to illumos and still trying to figure out and learn things

does it matter whether I build pkg out of omnios-build or its own source tree?

no it should both work. the one out of omnios-build is just to catch it when doing a full "core" build