Net connection help after installing Solaris 10 or should I stick with Open Solaris ?
 

Hi there,
I was using Solaris back in the mid/late 90s but stopped during the Linux explosion. However, I wanted to brush up on some skills so downloaded both the Open Solaris LiveCD as well as the Solaris 10 distro.

I decided to install S10 on a spare machine and install went well. During the install I decided not to install with the "Networking" option as I read that this could easily be configured afterwards. Now that install is complete I would like to register online and be legible for updates etc. Unfortunately, no networking services are running, and perhaps my NIC is not recognised. I tried to open up the NIC interface and assign a static IP address with "ifconfig hme0 plumb" and get error messages in addition I cannot find any entry to my NIC after using dmesg.( NIC driver issues ?)
Not only do I need to connect to the net but I also need to link up with my small home network comprising of an XP and Fedora 9 box.
When I boot up with the Open Solaris LiveCD I can connect to the net with no problems and get an IP address assigned automatically, hence, I assume the CD must contain the relevant drivers which recognise my NIC.

Should I continue with Solaris 10, in which case any help to get net connected would be appreciated, or should I wipe the S10 installation and install the current build of Open Solaris and take it from there ? I really need to get good grounding / familiarity in Solaris OS admin skills.
The machine I am using is a Fujitsu Siemens SCENIC N300 P4 with 512 RAM and everything else integrated onboard ( graphics , sound, LAN card etc).

Thanks !
UC

You can run and configure your network settings on system reboot.

My two cents: you could probably keep on configuring your Solaris 10 but unless you need Sun support for it I would wipe it out and install OpenSolaris instead.

First of all and in both of the cases I would check if your NIC is supported: run the Sun Device Detection tool at this address:
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/device_detect.jsp
It will tell you if your NIC is supported in Solaris 10. I'm not sure but it should also be included in the Solaris 10 DVD.

The sys-unconfig is an option but maybe it's overkill: Solaris 10 official documentation details the steps required to bring a NIC up and running:
http://docs.sun.com
This points to the "Administering Network Interfaces" chapter in the "IP Services" system administrator's guide.
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816...wf?l=en&a=view

If you want to sharpen your sysadmin skills I think you should start being familiar with the official docs.

Bye,
Enrico

What makes you believe your NIC is an hme ? Actually it can't be. This driver is only for SPARC based machines while yours is x86 based. The first step to manually configure a network driver under Solaris is to figure out what it is either by using one of the available tools or simply by running "ifconfig -a plumb;ifconfig -a".
Indeed. What are the drivers names under OpenSolaris ?

Thanks jlliagre,

When running "ifconfig -a plumb ;ifconfig -a" on S10 I only get the loopback ( lo0 ) information. Even when I run "dladm show-link" I get nothing. I've tried using the plumb parameter several times but nothing transpires.
On OpenSolaris (08-11) ifconfig -a reveals the interface as "afe0" and I get this interesting line when I run "prtconf -D" :

pci1734, 100c, instance #0 (driver name : afe)

Full prtconf -D output :

driver_aliases file :



When I run prtconf -D on the Solaris 10 install the line:

"pci1734,100c, instance #0 (driver name: afe)"

is not present and instead I just have " pci1734,100c " by itself.
Onboard NIC is ADMTEK AN983 Fast Ethernet

Any clearer ?

Cheers
UC

The afe driver (ADMtek) is only available with SunOS 5.11. So either go the OpenSolaris way or the Solaris Express one if you prefer something closer to Solaris 10.

Thanks very much jlliagre. Considering that I need to know stuff like setting up user accounts and other sysadmin skills should I go for Solaris Express ? I think you are prevented from setting up multiuser systems with Open Solaris ( forgive me if I'm wrong).

thanks again,
UC

What does prevented mean? I think you're wrong uncle-c.

Agreed. All Unix systems are multi-user by design. OpenSolaris is no exception.

Apologies gents. I mistakenly read somewhere that Open Solaris was users "jack" and "root" only. I think I will delete the Solaris 10 install and go full steam ahead on the Open Solaris ! Be prepared for lots of annoying questions from me though !
Just one last question - could you recommend a good book / manual for Open Solaris or should I just stick to the online guides ?

Thanks again !
uc

I used to stick with Sun documentation, which was sufficient most of the time. When some topic wasn't covered with sufficient detail (sendmail configuration is an example...) I use to rely on other sources of information.

You can check:
- projects and communities documentation from www.opensolaris.org
- Solaris Express documentation on docs.sun.com
- Solaris 10 documentation on docs.sun.com

The OpenSolaris bible has just been released, you can check a copy!