Managing Your Automatic Network Connection

The Network Auto-Magic (NWAM) feature of Oracle Solaris simplifies network configuration by addressing basic and moderate Ethernet and WiFi configurations, such as connecting to your wired or wireless network at startup and displaying notifications about the status of your network connection in the desktop. By default, NWAM is enabled on your system during the installation process. NWAM uses DHCP to obtain both an IP address and DNS name service configuration parameters. Static IP addresses and manual name service settings are also supported. NWAM uses different network configurations that are stored and activated, either manually or automatically, in response to changes in your network environment.

The nwamd daemon is the policy component of NWAM. This daemon functions in multiple roles to manage your system's network configuration. The nwamd daemon is managed by the Service Management Facility (SMF). For more information, see the nwamd(1M) man page.

Checking the Status of Your Network Connection

The quickest way to obtain essential information about your network is to check the Network Status panel icon that is displayed in the panel notification area of the GNOME desktop. The Network Status panel icon is the primary method for viewing information about your currently active network connection and for interacting with NWAM. Another way to display information about your currently active network connection is to hover your mouse over the panel icon. To obtain more detailed information about your wireless network (if any), or to change the currently active network interface, right-click the Network Status panel icon to access additional menu options.

The Network Status panel icon's appearance changes, depending on the status of your enabled wired and wireless network interfaces. For example, the following figure shows how the icon appears if all enabled interfaces are wireless and connected, or active.

Whereas, the following figure shows how the icon appears if at least one enabled interface is wired and disconnected, or inactive.