Managing Network Configuration When in Manual Mode

If you are manually configuring your network, keep the following key points in mind:

• To manually configure the network by using the dladm and ipadm commands, the DefaultFixed NCP must be active (online) after the installation or upgrade. Use the netadm command to verify which NCP is currently active on your system. See Example 7-1.

  If the DefaultFixed NCP is not active, you will need to enable the profile before you can manually configure the network. See Example 7-2.

• Persistent network configuration is now managed through SMF, not by editing the following files:

  • /etc/defaultdomain

  • /etc/dhcp.*

  • /etc/hostname.*

  • /etc/hostname.ip*.tun*

  • /etc/nodename

  • /etc/nsswitch.conf

  ---

  Note - The /etc/nsswitch.conf file is still referenced in this release, but you do not directly edit the file to make configuration changes. See Configuring Naming Services When in Manual Mode.

  ---

  For more information about setting a system's nodename (also sometimes referred to as hostname) in this release, see System Configuration Changes and Migration of System Configuration to SMF.

• During an installation, the system undergoes a one time upgrade to convert any existing /etc network configuration files to their respective ipadm and dladm configurations. The dladm command is used to configure datalinks. The ipadm command is used to configure link and IP interfaces. The ipadm command provides almost equivalent functionality to the ifconfig command. The ipadm command also replaces the ndd command. To compare ifconfig command options with ipadm subcommands, see Comparison Tables: ipadm Command and Other Networking Commands in Oracle Solaris Administration: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization.

• Network virtualization features are also configured and managed by using the dladm and ipadm commands. Objects that are in the link layer (Layer 2) of the network stack, for example, virtual local area networks (VLANs), tunnels, link aggregations, and the newer virtual NICs (VNICs), are configured by using the dladm command. Interfaces that are on the IP layer (Layer 3) are configured by using the ipadm command. See Chapter 19, Configuring Virtual Networks (Tasks), in Oracle Solaris Administration: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization and Chapter 6, Configuring IP Tunnels, in Oracle Solaris Administration: IP Services.

For additional information about setting network properties, see Chapter 4, Internet Protocol Suite Tunable Parameters, in Oracle Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference Manual.

Configuring Network Interfaces When in Manual Mode

The ipadm command is used to manually configure IP interfaces and addresses. For example, a static IPv4 interface is configured as follows:

# ipadm create-ip net0
# ipadm create-addr -T static -a local=10.9.8.7/24 net0/addr

The -T option can be used to specify three address types: static, dhcp, and addrconf (for auto-configured IPv6 addresses). In this example, the system is configured with a static IPv4 address. Use the same syntax to specify a static IPv6 address.

Configure an interface with DHCP as follows:

# ipadm create-ip net0
# ipadm create-addr -T dhcp net0/addr

Use the addrconf argument with the -T option to specify an automatically generated IPv6 address:

# ipadm create-ip net0
# ipadm create-addr -T addrconf net0/addr

If the net0 interface in this example was created, and you then wanted to change the IP address that was provided for this interface, you would need to first remove the interface and then re-add it:

# ipadm delete-ip net0
# ipadm create-ip net0
# ipadm create-addr -T addrconf net0/new-add

For more information about the commands that are used to manually configure the network, see Commands That Are Used for Network Configuration (Quick Reference).

See also Chapter 9, Configuring an IP Interface, in Oracle Solaris Administration: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization and ipadm(1M).

Displaying and Configuring Link Interfaces When in Manual Mode

When you perform a fresh installation, all datalinks are automatically assigned generic names by using a net0, net1, and netN naming convention, depending on the total number of network devices on a system. After installing, you can use different datalink names. See How to Rename a Datalink in Oracle Solaris Administration: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization.

Display information about the datalinks on a system as follows:

# dladm show-phys
LINK              MEDIA                STATE      SPEED  DUPLEX    DEVICE
net2              Ethernet             up         10000  full      hxge0
net3              Ethernet             up         10000  full      hxge1
net4              Ethernet             up         10     full      usbecm0
net0              Ethernet             up         1000   full      igb0
net1              Ethernet             up         1000   full      igb1
net9              Ethernet             unknown    0      half      e1000g0
net5              Ethernet             unknown    0      half      e1000g1
net10             Ethernet             unknown    0      half      e1000g2
net11             Ethernet             unknown    0      half      e1000g3

Display a datalink name, its device name, and its location in this manner:

# dladm show-phys -L net0
LINK              DEVICE       LOC
net0              e1000g0      IOBD

Rename a datalink as follows:

If an IP interface is configured over the datalink, first remove that interface.

# ipadm delete-ip interface

Then, change the link's current name.

# dladm rename-link old-linkname new-linkname

The old-linkname refers to the current name of the datalink. By default, the link name is hardware-based, such as bge0. The new-linkname refers to any name that you want to assign to the datalink. For more information, see Chapter 8, Datalink Configuration and Administration, in Oracle Solaris Administration: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization. See also Chapter 7, Using Datalink and Interface Configuration Commands on Profiles, in Oracle Solaris Administration: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization.

Configuring Naming Services When in Manual Mode

The SMF repository is the primary repository for all naming services configuration. The previous behavior of modifying a configuration file to configure naming services no longer works. These services, for example, svc:/system/name-service/switch, svc:/network/dns/client, and svc:/system/name-service/cache must be enabled or refreshed for any changes to take affect.

The following table describes the naming service configuration that has migrated to SMF.

Table 7-1 SMF Service to Legacy File Mapping

Example 7-3 Configuring Naming Services by Using SMF

The following example shows how to configure DNS by using SMF commands.

# svccfg
svc:> select dns/client
svc:/network/dns/client> setprop config/search = astring: \
("us.company.com" "eu.company.com" "companya.com" "companyb.com" "company.com" )
svc:/network/dns/client> setprop config/nameserver = net_address: \
( 138.2.202.15 138.2.202.25 )
svc:/network/dns/client> select dns/client:default
svc:/network/dns/client:default> refresh
svc:/network/dns/client:default> validate
svc:/network/dns/client:default> select name-service/switch
svc:/system/name-service/switch> setprop config/host = astring: "files dns"
svc:/system/name-service/switch> select system/name-service/switch:default
svc:/system/name-service/switch:default> refresh
svc:/system/name-service/switch:default> validate
svc:/system/name-service/switch:default> 
# svcadm enable dns/client
# svcadm refresh name-service/switch
# grep host /etc/nsswitch.conf
hosts:  files dns
# cat /etc/resolv.conf
#
# opyright (c) 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
#

#
# _AUTOGENERATED_FROM_SMF_V1_
#
# WARNING: THIS FILE GENERATED FROM SMF DATA.
#   DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE.  EDITS WILL BE LOST.
# See resolv.conf(4) for details.

search    us.company.com eu.company.com companya.com companyb.com company.com
nameserver    138.2.202.15
nameserver    138.2.202.25
.
.
.

Example 7-4 Setting Multiple NIS Servers by Using SMF

The following example shows how to set multiple NIS servers.

# svccfg -s nis/domain setprop config/ypservers = host: (1.2.3.4 5.6.7.8)

Note that there is space between 1.2.3.4 and 5.6.7.8.

Example 7-5 Setting Multiple DNS Options by Using SMF

The following example shows how to set multiple /etc/resolv.conf options.

# svccg
svc:> select /network/dns/client
svc:/network/dns/client> setprop config/options = "ndots:2,retrans:3,retry:1"
svc:/network/dns/client> listprop config/options
config/options astring     ndots:2,retrans:3,retry:1

# svcadm refresh dns/client
# grep options /etc/resolv.conf
options ndots:2,retrans:3,retry:1 

resolv.conf Error-Checking Capabilities

Prior to the naming services to SMF migration, errors in the resolv.conf file configuration were processed silently and went undetected without producing any warnings. As a result, the resolv.conf file did not behave according to how it was configured. In Oracle Solaris 11, some basic error checking is performed through the use of SMF templates so that error conditions are properly reported. Note that other SMF services also all have some rudimentary error-checking capabilities. However, the resolv.conf error reporting is the most prominent due to the absence of error reporting in libresolv2. See resolv.conf(4).

Temporarily Resetting SMF Naming Services

Reset configuration properties of an SMF naming service back to a files only mode as follows:

# /usr/sbin/nscfg unconfig name-service/switch
# svcadm refresh name-service/switch

The nscfg unconfig command resets the SMF configuration only. The sysconfig command executes the appropriate SMF services, as well as resets SMF and on disk legacy files and services to their original state.

Importing Network Configuration

The nscfg command transfers legacy file configuration for the name-service switch components into the SMF repository. The command imports the legacy file, converting and pushing the configuration to SMF. For example:

# /usr/sbin/nscfg import -f FMRI

In this example, the nscfg command reads information in the /etc/resolv.conf file, converts it, then stores the information in the svc:/network/dns/client SMF service.

# /usr/sbin/nscfg import -f dns/client

If your system is running in files only mode, and no naming services have been configured or enabled, use the nscfg command to manually configure the system, as shown here:

# vi /etc/resolv.conf
# /usr/sbin/nscfg import -f dns/client
# cp /etc/nsswitch.dns /etc/nsswitch.conf
# /usr/sbin/nscfg import -f name-service/switch
# svcadm enable dns/client
# svcadm refresh name-service/switch

For more information, see nscfg(1M).

How to Use a Legacy nsswitch.conf File

When you change a system's naming service, you need to modify the name service switch information accordingly.

1. Become an administrator.
2. Copy the nsswitch.conf file to the new system.
3. Load the information from the file into the SMF repository.

   # nscfg import -f svc:/system/name-service/switch:default

4. Refresh the name service switch SMF service.

   # svcadm refresh name-service/switch

Configuring LDAP When in Manual Mode

The easiest way to set up LDAP is to enable the DefaultFixed NCP and perform manual network configuration. Then, if you want to use an LDAP proxy or LDAP self modes and some form of security credentials, run the ldapclient command to complete the LDAP setup. See ldapclient(1M).