Adding Devices to the System

When you boot the system, it does a self-test and checks for all attached devices that are attached. After you add a new device to the system, use boot -r to activate dynamic reconfiguration of the kernel. A reconfiguration script is run to load all the device drivers listed in the module's directories and to create the corresponding hardware nodes. See the kernel(1M) man page for more information.

You can also use boot -a to interactively add drivers or modules to the system, but if you do, you will be asked to provide other boot parameters, including what to boot and where the root file system is.

Paths to the system files and kernel modules are stored in /etc/system. When the system boots, it reads the information in /etc/system to determine which modules to load. You can specify a different path by using the MODDIR syntax of the system(4) file or by using boot -a.

For more information about boot(1m) or about adding devices and drivers, see System Administration Guide, Volume I.

Dynamic Reconfiguration

Dynamic reconfiguration, available on certain SPARC servers with the Solaris 7 release, allows a service provider to remove or replace hot-pluggable system I/O boards in a running system, eliminating the time lost in rebooting. Also, if a replacement board is not immediately available, the system administrator can use dynamic reconfiguration to shut down a failing board while allowing the system to continue operation.

See your hardware manufacturer's documentation for information about whether dynamic reconfiguration is supported on your server.