Key Features of the Solaris 8 Release

Next Generation Internet Protocol 

IPv6 

IPv6 adds increased address space and improves Internet functionality using a simplified header format, support for authentication and privacy, autoconfiguration of address assignments, and enables new quality-of-service capabilities. (more)

Directory Services and Naming Enhancements 

Native Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) 

Native LDAP provides the Naming Service switch back-end support for LDAP based directory service. (more)

Java Enhancements 

Java 2 Software Development Kit (SDK) for Solaris 

The Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition version 1.2.1_04 is the latest release of the Java 2 platform for the Solaris operating environment. It includes these enhancements:

• Improved scalability

• Improved class libraries, including the new Java 2 APIs

• Enhanced memory management system

• High-performance, scalable Java Virtual Machine (JVM)

• Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler optimizations

• Faster Java thread synchronization

Installation and Management 

Solaris Web Start enhanced installation CD 

Solaris Web Start, a graphical, wizard based, Java powered software application that installs the Solaris operating environment and other software, is now distributed on a separate installation CD. (more)

Booting a system over the network with Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) 

Network installs can now use DHCP to acquire boot parameters and network configuration information needed to boot a client over the network. DHCP booting is supported on certain SPARC and IA based systems. (more)

IA: Boot partition in Solaris 8  

Users running Solaris Intel Platform Edition can now designate a separate IA boot partition. (more)

IA: CD-ROM boot 

This new feature enables the user to boot a system from an installation CD (rather than the Device Configuration Assistant diskette, as was the case in the past) using the "El Torito" standard. (more)

DHCP Manager 

DHCP Manager provides a Java-based graphical interface for configuring and managing the Solaris DHCP server and DHCP databases. It allows the system administrator to use a single tool to perform all DHCP management duties: set up and manage DHCP servers, manage client configuration options and macros, and manage networks and IP addresses that are under DHCP management. (more)

IA: Large disk support  

By using improved BIOS interfaces to access the disk, Solaris 8 Intel Platform Edition now fully uses disks larger than 8 Gbytes. (more)

Solaris Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) Services 

Solaris WBEM Services software is an implementation of Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standards and technologies in the Solaris operating environment. Intended for developers and administrators of WBEM-enabled environments, Solaris WBEM Services provides the Solaris Schema, extensions of the CIM Schema classes, and management, security, and logging services. (more)

Support for domain name system (DNS) in system identification utilities 

DNS has been added to the list of name services that can be configured through the system identification utilities. (more)

Support for IPv6 in system identification utilities 

Systems can now be configured at install time to use IPv6 in addition to IPv4. (more)

Unlimited number of pseudo-terminals available 

Solaris 8 software enables the opening on any number of pseudo-terminals (used by programs like rlogin and telnet). (more)

Reading documentation from the Solaris 8 Documentation CD 

The ab2cd script enables all users to read AnswerBook2^TM documentation directly from the Solaris 8 Documentation CD. It has been enhanced to provide better user feedback, to enable users to set the port number on which ab2cd runs, and to read documentation already installed on the user's system. (more)

Product Registry 

The Solaris Product Registry is a tool to manage software installed using Solaris Web Start 3.0 or the Solaris package management commands (pkgadd, for example). It enables you to:

• View a list of installed and registered software and some software attributes

• Install additional software products

• Uninstall software

• Browse for and launch an installer

(more)

Networking 

SPARC^TM: InterDomain Networks (IDNs)

IDNs enable the user to set up high-speed network connections between dynamic system domains without the need for special hardware. (more)

IP Security Architecture (IPsec) for IPv4 

IPsec provides protection for IP datagrams. The protection can include confidentiality, strong integrity of the data, partial sequence integrity (replay protection), and data authentication. (more)

IPv6 NFS/RPC compliant 

This feature adds IPv6 support to NFS^TM and RPC in a seamless manner. There are no changes to existing commands related to NFS. Most RPC applications will also run over IPv6 without any change. Some advanced RPC applications with transport knowledge might require updates. (more)

Logical Link Controller 2 (LLC2) 

The Class II logical link control driver (LLC2) interfaces network software (NetBIOS, SNA, OSI), running under the Solaris operating environment to a physical LAN network controlled by one of the supported communications adapters. This version of the LLC2 driver includes support for both connectionless and connection-oriented logical link control class II LLC2 operations for Ethernet, Token Ring, and FDDI adapters when accessed through the appropriate Solaris MAC layer driver. (more)

NIS/NIS+ over IPv6 transports 

This feature enables users to perform NIS and NIS+ operations over IPv6 RPC transports, and to store IPv6 addresses in the NIS, NIS+, and DNS naming services. (more)

sendmail 8.9.3

New options and utilities improve the storage and security functionality of sendmail. (more)

Service Location Protocol (SLP) 

SLP is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) protocol for discovering shared resources (such as printers, file servers, netcams, and so on) in an enterprise network. The Solaris 8 operating environment contains a full implementation of SLP that includes APIs that allow developers to write SLP-enabled applications, and provides system administrators a framework for ease of network extensibility. (more)

Solaris STREAMS framework enhancements 

The STREAMS framework enhancements in the Solaris 8 operating environment provide more deterministic response times for real-time processes by ensuring that STREAMS processing uses a priority that does not conflict with the user process priority. (more)

Network time protocol 

NTP provides precise time and network clock synchronization for use in distributed computing environments. The Solaris 8 release has been upgraded to include the 3-5.93e version. (more)

File System Enhancements 

Universal Disk Format (UDF) file system 

The UDF file system, the industry-standard format for storing information on optical media technology, is supported in this Solaris release. The UDF file system can be used to exchange data on the following components when they contain a UDF file system: 

• CD-ROMs

• Disks and diskettes

• Digital versatile disc or digital video disc (DVD) -- DVD-ROM on supported platforms

(more)

NFS server logging 

NFS server logging allows an NFS server to provide a record of file operations performed on its file systems. This feature is particularly useful for sites that make anonymous FTP archives available to NFS and WebNFS^TM clients. (more)

IA: Extended Memory (XMEM) support 

XMEM support provides a mechanism that allows a single 32-bit process to efficiently allocate and manage more than 4 Gbytes of physical memory. The XMEM feature is implemented as a file system (xmemfs) that system administrators can mount and use to reserve memory for applications. (more)

WebNFS JavaBeans component 

The WebNFS JavaBeans^TM component contains an XFileChooser class that extends the JFileChooser graphical component of the Java 2 API. This bean can be used by any Java 2 application that needs to display a file chooser to enable users to select a file for input (open) or output (save). Using XFileChooser an application can access a file on a local disk or on an NFS server through the use of NFS URL naming. (more)

Deferred access time updates on UFS file systems 

Two new mount options, dfratime and nodfratime enable and disable deferred access time updates on UFS file systems. When enabled, writing access time updates for the file system may be deferred until the disk is accessed for a reason other than updating access times. (more)

Diagnostic and Availability Enhancements 

The coreadm command

The coreadm command provides flexible core file naming conventions and better core file retention. (more)

Examining core files with proc tools 

Some of the proc tools have been enhanced to examine process core files as well as live processes. The proc tools are utilities that can manipulate features of the /proc file system. (more)

Improved device configuration (devfsadm)

The devfsadm command provides an improved mechanism for managing the special device files in the /dev and /devices directories, including support for dynamic reconfiguration events. (more)

Improved system error messages 

The system boot and error message format now provides a numeric identifier, module name, and time stamp to messages generated by the syslog(1M) logging facility. In addition, messages that were previously lost after a system panic and reboot are now saved.

Modular debugger (mdb)

mdb is a new extensible utility for low-level debugging and editing of the live operating system, operating system crash dumps, user processes, user process core dumps, and object files. (more)

Remote console messaging 

This release includes the consadm command, which enables you to select a serial device as an auxiliary (or remote) console for troubleshooting remote system problems. (more)

TCP/IP internal trace support 

TCP/IP now provides internal trace support by logging TCP communication when a connection is terminated by a reset (RST) packet. (more)

Performance and Scalability Enhancements 

IA: Added support for Physical Address Extension (PAE) mode  

With the release of Pentium Pro, Intel introduced a mode called PAE on its advanced processors. By using PAE, Solaris Intel Platform Edition can address up to 32 Gbytes of physical memory. (more)

apptrace

A new application debugging tool, apptrace enables application developers and system support personnel to debug application or system problems by providing call traces to Solaris shared libraries, which may show the series of events leading up to a point of failure. (more)

SPARC: busstat

A new system monitoring tool, busstat provides access to bus-related performance counters on supported SPARC platforms. Viewing these performance counters with busstat enables you to measure hardware clock cycles and bus statistics including DMA and cache coherency transactions on a multiprocessor system. (more)

Faster boot for servers 

Large servers now require significantly less time to boot. (more)

New alternative to poll() interface

/dev/poll is a second form of polling for the completion of I/O events that provides much higher performance when a very large number of events must be polled for on file descriptors that remain open for a long time. This feature supplements poll(2); it does not replace poll(2). (more)

prstat

The prstat utility iteratively examines all active processes on the system and reports various statistics based on the selected output mode and sort order. (more)

IA: Xeon enhancements  

To maximize performance, Solaris 8 Intel Platform Edition now supports the Page Attribute Table (PAT) feature of IA32-bit processors (Pentium II and Pentium III). (more)

Security Enhancements 

Solaris Smart Cards 

The Solaris Smart Card feature implements the Open Card Framework (OCF) 1.1 standard. Security administrators can use this technology to protect a computer desktop or individual application by requiring users to authenticate themselves by means of a smart card. (more)

Default file system and directory permissions 

Many system files and directories in the Solaris 8 release have different default ownership and stricter permissions than in previous releases. (more)

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) 

Traditional superuser-based systems grant full superuser powers to anyone who can become superuser. With RBAC, administrators can assign limited administrative capabilities to normal users. (more)

Centralized administration of user audit events 

The file, /etc/security/audit_user, which stores audit preselection classes for users and roles, is now supported in the name switch. It is no longer necessary to set up the audit events for a user on each system to which the user has access.

Realtime Systems Enhancement 

High resolution timers 

The high resolution timers (HRTs) bypass the traditional 10 millisecond clock interface to expose the granularity of the physical clock interrupt from the hardware. Thus, the HRT interface allows a real time process to take control of one processor (of a multi-processor system) and operate to any required degree of precision in timing events. (more)

User-level priority inheritance 

The real-time threads feature implements the POSIX interfaces (previously only dummied in) that let the high priority thread "lend" its priority to the low priority thread until it releases the lock. (more)

Common Desktop Environment (CDE) Desktop Enhancements 

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) support 

The PDA Synchronization (PDASync) is a Java-based application that enables users to easily synchronize their desktop calendar, mail, address book, and memos with their PDA. (more)

Hot Key Editor 

The Hot Key Editor enables users to predefine a series of commands to a given function key, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency. (more)

Java Media Framework (JMF) 

The JMF, a Java-based application, provides smooth streaming video file format support for MPEG1, MPEG2, Quicktime, and AVI, as well as audio support for MIDI. This feature enables users to take advantage of the real-time video creation and broadcast functionality. (more)

SPARC: Audio Mixer 

CDE now includes a new GUI tool, sdtaudiocontrol, that supersedes audiocontrol. sdtaudiocontrol, uses the features of the audio mixer, and provides more features. (more)

See also "SPARC: Audio Mixer"

SPARC: PC launcher 1.0 

PC launcher 1.0 for SunPCi enables users to get seamless access and power to view, edit, and print many popular types of PC files or attachments instantly, by automatically launching the associated Windows application and file. (more)

Netscape Application Launcher 

The Netscape^TM Application Launcher enables users to easily access and automatically launch Netscape files and associated Netscape applications such as Composer. This feature eliminates the need to run the entire Netscape environment, simplifying access to Netscape applications. (more)

Print Client enhancements 

Print Client now enables users to easily configure their own set of printers and default printer without any intervention from an administrator. (more)

SDTImage enhancements 

The SDTImage screen snapshot feature now enables users to easily and quickly capture a screenshot image from the command line. (more)

Smart card support 

CDE now supports smart card authentication security technology. Users can now use smart cards to authenticate their identity when logging in to CDE on a protected system, relogging in after a screen lock, or reauthenticating after the smart card is removed. CDE supports both external and internal smart card devices. (more)

ToolTips 

ToolTips provides users with Balloon Help, a simple and short description of an icon function. (more)

X11R6.4 support 

The X Server is upgraded to the X11R6.4 industry standard which includes key features that increase user productivity and mobility, including remote execution of X applications through web browser on any web-based desktop, Xinerama, Color Utilization Policy, EnergyStar support, and new APIs and documentation for the developer tool kits. (more)

Extended control panel 

This feature provides a unified, consistent, and extensible launchpad for desktop customization, such as desktop controls for color, font, backdrop, and Application Manager. 

Web Services 

Java Plug-in 

Java Plug-in for the Solaris operating environment is an add-on product for Netscape Navigator^TM that enables Java applets and JavaBeans components to run on Web pages using Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.2 instead of the default Java Virtual Machine (JVM) bundled with Navigator. (more)

Netscape Communicator 4.7 

Solaris 8 includes Netscape Communicator 4.7 and now installs it by default on your system. (more)

Solaris Network Cache and Accelerator (NCA) 

The Solaris NCA increases web server performance by maintaining an in-kernel cache of web pages accessed during HTTP requests. (more)

Apache web server 

The open source Apache web server is now bundled with Solaris. It includes all the standard Apache modules, including proxy server support, as well as the mod_perl module. (more)

Printing 

Print naming enhancement 

This Solaris release supports the printers database in /etc/nsswitch.conf, the name service switch file. The printers database provides centralized printer configuration information to print clients on the network. (more)

Solaris Print Manager 

Solaris Print Manager is a Java-based graphical user interface that enables you to manage local and remote printer access. This tool can be used in the following name service environments: NIS, NIS+, NIS+ with Federated Naming Service (FNS), and files. (more)

Language Support 

Universal language coverage 

The Solaris 8 operating environment now includes support for more than 90 locales, covering 37 languages, on both the Solaris 8 Software CDs and the Solaris 8 Languages CD. (more)

Improved language installation and setup 

Changes to packaging on the language CD have reduced the storage requirements for a mixed language installation. A redesign of the install interface makes language selection and grouping extremely intuitive. (more)

Expanded Unicode support 

Solaris 8 continues to broaden support for Unicode with the addition of new Unicode (UTF-8) locales for Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. (more)

Customer-extensible codeset conversion (geniconvtbl)

With the Solaris 8 operating environment, developers can easily create and add to the Solaris system their own user-defined codeset conversions by using the geniconvtbl utility. Modification to existing Solaris codeset conversions is also supported. (more)

Improved data interoperability 

Data interoperability with non-Solaris environments has been improved in Solaris 8 with the addition of the following new iconv data conversion utilities:

• iconv for Japanese mainframe data types

• iconv for Microsoft data encodings (including user defined characters)

• iconv for UTF-8 interoperability in People's Republic of China and Korea

• iconv for various Unicode encoding formats and international and de facto industry standard codesets

New locales added 

Two new locales have been added to Solaris 8 for Iceland (ISO8859-15) and Russia (ANSI1251). The new Russian locale is in addition to the existing Russian (8859-5) locale and provides native Microsoft data encoding support. (more)

Documentation 

AnswerBook2 Documentation Server updates 

The AnswerBook2 Documentation Server has been updated for this release. Major changes since the Solaris 7 release include replacing the AnswerBook2 navigation icons with text, improved support for non-English locales, and minor changes to improve overall performance and stability. (more)

Reference Manual reorganization 

The section of the SunOS Reference Manual that describes the C library functions (but does not include the system calls) now contains six books instead of one. These books are

• Library Interfaces and Headers

• Basic Library Functions

• Networking Library Functions

• Threads and Realtime Library Functions

• Extended Library Functions

• Curses Library Functions

SPARC: audio mixer 

The audio mixer driver now enables multiple applications to simultaneously play and record audio. This new enhancement supersedes the previous capability, which only supported a single play application and a single record application. In addition, CDE 1.4 now includes a new GUI tool, sdtaudiocontrol, that supersedes audiocontrol. sdtaudiocontrol uses the features of the audio mixer, and provides more features. (more)

Software Developer Environment 

SPARC: 64-bit Kodak Color Management System (KCMS) libraries  

Kodak Color Management System^TM (KCMS^TM) is now providing a 64-bit version of the libraries. Applications that currently use KCMS and are converted to the 64-bit operating environment can now retain color management. (more)

Always ready Power Management^TM

With the Solaris 8 operating environment, a device driver using the new device Power Management interfaces will be power managed automatically. (more)

cpustat and cputrack commands

The new cpustat and cputrack commands capture system-wide and per-process CPU statistics respectively, to monitor the performance of a system or a process. (more)

Extensions to runtime link auditing 

Additional means of invoking runtime link auditing libraries is provided by the link editor options -p and -P. Additional runtime link auditing interfaces la_activity() and la_objsearch() have been added. (more)

Practical Extraction and Report Language (Perl) 5 

The popular programming language, Perl 5.005_03, is included in the Solaris 8 release. Perl is commonly used for CGI scripting as well as automating complex system administration tasks. (more)

Role-based access control (RBAC) for developers 

The addition of RBAC to the Solaris operating environment gives developers the opportunity to deliver fine-grained security in new and modified applications. Developers can now create privileged functions that check for authorizations instead of checking for specific IDs such as superuser. (more)

Secure path name change from /usr/lib to /usr/lib/secure

The secure directory from which files can be preloaded is now /usr/lib/secure for 32-bit objects and /usr/lib/secure/sparcv9 for 64-bit SPARCV9 objects. (more)

Dynamic string token support 

Greater flexibility in establishing instruction set specific, and system specific dependencies is provided with the new $ISALIST, $OSNAME, and $OSREL dynamic string tokens. (more)

strftime() function update

The %u conversion specification for the strftime() function has been changed. (more)

Alternate one-level libthread 

An alternate threads implementation provides a one-level model in which user-level threads are associated one-to-one with lightweight processes (LWPs). This implementation is simpler than the standard implementation and may be beneficial to some multithreaded applications. (more)

SPARC: audio mixer driver 

The audio mixer driver now allows multiple applications to play and record audio simultaneously. (more)

Updated DDI interfaces for cluster-aware device drivers 

A documentation overview introduces the concept of device classes and the necessary interface modifications and additions for device driver writers. (more)

8-bit visual support 

The 8-bit visual shared library enables device drivers with only 24-bit hardware to display 8-bit visual applications. 

IA Hardware Enhancements 

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)  

ACPI is a new, more flexible way to configure and control IA hardware. ACPI obsoletes Plug and Play BIOS and the Intel Multi-Processor Specification (MPSPEC). If ACPI is available on your IA based system, Solaris 8 automatically uses it to configure the hardware. (more)

PCI hot-plug support  

This feature enables standard PCI adapters to be hot-plugged into a machine with the hot-plug capability that is running Solaris Intel Platform Edition. You can now add (hot-add) or remove (hot-remove) adapters from a system while the system is still running. (more)

Universal Serial Bus (USB) support for keyboards and mouse devices  

Solaris Intel Platform Edition now provides USB support for keyboards and mouse devices. (more)

X Server video driver enhancement  

Solaris Intel Platform Edition now provides support for more video devices. (more)

IA SCSI Drivers 

IA: cadp driver enhancements

The Solaris cadp driver now supports Adaptec Ultra2 adapters. (more)

IA: ncrs device driver enhancements

The Solaris ncrs device driver now supports the SCSI hot-plugging functionality and Ultra2 devices, in addition to general functionality and performance improvements. (more)

IA: symhisl device driver

The symhisl device driver, which supports the adapters SYM22910 and SYM21002, is now included in Solaris Intel Platform Edition. (more)

Early Access Software 

The Solaris 8 release includes an Early Access (EA) directory with EA software. For more information, refer to the README on the Solaris Software CD 2 of 2. 

Freeware 

Several freeware tools and libraries are included in the Solaris 8 release. These tools assist the development of tools for administration and development tasks. (more)