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Configure Network on Solaris

Introduction

Solaris can be challenging! Especially when you come from a Linux/BSD world and find that all the network commands are strange.

Detecting Network Cards

To detect network cards that are present and especially connected, here's a very useful command:

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$ dladm show-dev
igb0            link: up        speed: 1000  Mbps       duplex: full
igb1            link: up        speed: 1000  Mbps       duplex: full
igb2            link: up        speed: 1000  Mbps       duplex: full
igb3            link: up        speed: 1000  Mbps       duplex: full
clprivnet0              link: unknown   speed: 0     Mbps       duplex: unknown

Or you can use dladm show-links to get more detailed information about the connection status.

For a link aggregation (IPMP) of type 802.3ad:

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> dladm show-aggr -s -i 2 1

key:1       ipackets   rbytes       opackets   obytes       %ipkts  %opkts
    Total   355021     531533375    60288      4944021     
    nxge0   166090     249992028    0          0              46.8     0.0  
    nxge1   120638     179830318    0          0              34.0     0.0  
    nxge4   16         1172         25728      2109696         0.0    42.7  
    nxge5   68277      101709857    34560      2834325        19.2    57.3  

key:1       ipackets   rbytes       opackets   obytes       %ipkts  %opkts
    Total   344131     513180425    47543      3900596     
    nxge0   167398     250160702    12         1672           48.6     0.0  
    nxge1   95286      142041090    8          1330           27.7     0.0  
    nxge4   17         1320         21601      1771571         0.0    45.4  
    nxge5   81430      120977313    25922      2126023        23.7    54.5

Basic Network Configuration

Here are some useful commands to reset a Solaris configuration, especially the network:

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ifconfig -a     Display interfaces with IP and MAC addresses
show-devs   Display peripherals
prtconf -vD    Display all peripherals

There are two ways to reconfigure the network. The wizard and manual:

  • The wizard:
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sys-unconfig    This will reset ALL network configuration! Reboot required
sysidconfig     Not tested, but also supposed to reconfigure the network
  • And then manually, here are the files to modify:
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/etc/hostname.x (x corresponds to the network interface)
/etc/nodename
/etc/defaultrouter
/etc/netmasks

Dynamic Configuration

Finally, a "reboot" or "boot net" should do the trick. However, you may not be able to reboot, so here's the solution:

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ifconfig e1000g0 plumb
ifconfig e1000g0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
ifconfig e1000g0 up
ifconfig -a

Persistent Configuration

To make it always active:

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192.168.0.1 broadcast + netmask 255.255.255.0 + up

This is an example.

DHCP

How do we set up DHCP? Very simple:

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ifconfig e1000g1 dhcp start

To make it permanently active, create a file:

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touch /etc/dhcp.e1000g1
touch /etc/hostname.e1000g0

Routing

The folks at Sun who can't do things like everyone else have their own route command. So to list the present routes:

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netstat -rn

And to add or delete routes:

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netstat -rn   # show current routes
netstat -rnv  # show current routes and their masks
route add destIP gatewayIP
route add destIP -netmask 255.255.0.0 gatewayIP
route delete destIP gatewayIP
route delete destIP -netmask 255.255.0.0 gatewayIP

DNS

You'll now need to define the nsswitch to add name resolution:

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...
hosts:      files dns
...

Then edit the resolv.conf file and insert the DNS servers like this:

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nameserver 212.27.40.241
nameserver 212.27.40.240

Routes

Here's how to add routes. To make them persistent, add the -p option:

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route -p add 192.168.15.0 192.168.15.1

Persistent routes are stored in /etc/inet/static_routes.

VIP

Here's how to manually set up a VIP in Solaris:

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ifconfig <network_interface> addif <vip>/<mask> up

For example:

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ifconfig nge1 addif 192.168.0.1/24 up

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