How to Obtain Interface Status

Starting with Solaris 10 1/06, this procedure explains how to determine which interfaces are currently available on a system and their status. This procedure also shows which interfaces are currently plumbed. If you are using the earlier Solaris 10 3/05, refer to How to Get Information About a Specific Interface.

1. On the system with the interfaces to be configured, assume the Primary Administrator role or become superuser.

   The Primary Administrator role includes the Primary Administrator profile. To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Chapter 2, Working With the Solaris Management Console (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

2. Determine which interfaces are currently installed on your system.

   # dladm show-link

   This step uses the dladm command, which is explained in detail in the dladm(1M) man page. This command reports on all the interface drivers that it finds, regardless of whether the interfaces are currently configured.

3. Determine which interfaces on the system are currently plumbed.

   # ifconfig -a

   The ifconfig command has many additional functions, including plumbing an interface. For more information, refer to the ifconfig(1M) man page.

Example 6–1 Obtaining the Status of an Interface with the dladm command

The next example shows the status display of the dladm command.

# dladm show-link
ce0             type: legacy    mtu: 1500       device: ce0
ce1             type: legacy    mtu: 1500       device: ce1
bge0            type: non-vlan  mtu: 1500       device: bge0
bge1            type: non-vlan  mtu: 1500       device: bge1
bge2            type: non-vlan  mtu: 1500       device: bge2
 

The output of dladm show-link indicates that four interface drivers are available for the local host. Both the ce and the bge interfaces can be configured for VLANs. However, only the GLDV3 interfaces with a type of non-VLAN can be used for link aggregations.

The next example shows the status display of the ifconfig -a command.

# ifconfig -a
 lo0: flags=2001000849 <UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu
8232 index 1
         inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000  
ce0: flags=1000843 <UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4>mtu 1500 index 3
         inet 192.168.84.253 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.84.255
        ether 0:3:ba:7:84:5e  
bge0: flags=1004843 <UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DHCP,IPv4>mtu 1500 index 2
         inet 10.8.57.39 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 10.8.57.255
        ether 0:3:ba:29:fc:cc 

The output of the ifconfig -a command displays statistics for only two interfaces, ce0 and bge0. This output shows that only ce0 and bge0 have been plumbed and are ready for use by network traffic. These interfaces can be used in a VLAN. Because bge0 has been plumbed, you can no longer use this interface in an aggregation.