What's New in the Solaris 9 4/04 Operating Environment

Device Management

The Solaris 9 release includes the following enhancements for device management.

SPARC: Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager

The Sun StorEdgeTM Traffic Manager feature supports multiple paths for I/O devices such as Fibre Channel-accessible storage. This feature balances the workload across multiple devices. Additionally, the Traffic Manager increases reliability by redirecting requests from a failed interface card or storage device to a card or device that is operational.

SPARC: Sun Gigaswift Ethernet Driver

As of the Solaris 8 7/01 release, the Solaris operating environment includes support for the SunTM Gigaswift 1000Base-T Ethernet driver. This product enhances performance of a 1-Gbyte twisted-pair copper Ethernet link.

For further information, see the ce(7D) man page.

USB Devices


Note –

In the Solaris 9 4/04 release, new and revised USB feature descriptions are provided. See Device Management.


The Solaris operating environment includes support for USB devices such as keyboards, mouse devices, audio devices, mass storage devices, and printers.


Note –

These enhancements for USB device support are new for the SPARC platform in the Solaris 9 release. In the Solaris 9 12/02 Update release, these enhancements are now also available for x86 platforms.


Sun Microsystems support for USB devices includes the following:

Using USB Mass Storage Devices


Note –

In the Solaris 9 4/04 release, new and revised USB feature descriptions are provided. See Device Management.


Many USB mass storage devices are supported in the Solaris environment. Some noncompliant USB devices might work. Follow the information that is provided in the /kernel/drv/scsa2usb.conf file to see if a particular device can be supported.


Note –

These USB mass storage devices enhancements are new for the SPARC platform in the Solaris 9 release. In the Solaris 9 8/03 Update release, these enhancements are now also available for x86 platforms.


For further information, see the System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

Hot-Plugging USB Devices With the cfgadm Command


Note –

In the Solaris 9 4/04 release, new and revised USB feature descriptions are provided. See Device Management.


With the cfgadm command, you can hot-plug a USB device from a running system without having to shut down the system. You can also use the cfgadm command to logically hot-plug a USB device without physically removing the device. This scenario is convenient when you need to reset a USB device from a remote location.


Note –

These enhancements for hot-plugging are new for the SPARC platform in the Solaris 9 release. In the Solaris 9 8/03 Update release, these enhancements are now also available for x86 platforms.


For more information, see the cfgadm_usb(1M) man page.

USB Printer Support


Note –

In the Solaris 9 4/04 release, new and revised USB feature descriptions are provided. See Device Management.


You can use Solaris Print Manager to set up a USB printer that is attached to a system with USB ports.

The new logical device names for USB printers are as follows:

/dev/printers/[0...N]*

Therefore, when you add a USB printer to a printer server, select one of these devices for a USB printer. Select a device under Printer Port on the Add New Attached Printer screen.


Note –

These USB printer support enhancements are new for the SPARC platform in the Solaris 9 release. In the Solaris 9 8/03 Update release, these enhancements are now also available for x86 platforms.


For more information on using the Solaris Print Manager to set up printers, see the System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration.

The USB printer driver in the Solaris 9 release supports all USB printer-class compliant printers. Check the list of recommended PostScriptTM printers in the usbprn(7D) man page.

For information and cautions about hot-plugging USB printers, refer to the Notes and Diagnostics sections of the usbprn(7D) man page.

Reconfiguration Coordination Manager (RCM)

Dynamic reconfiguration of system resources enables you to reconfigure system components while the system is still running. This feature has been available with the cfgadm command since the Solaris 8 release. The Reconfiguration Coordination Manager is the framework that manages the dynamic removal of system components. By using RCM, you can register and release system resources in an orderly manner.

Previously, you had to release resources from applications manually before you could dynamically remove the resource. Or, you could use the cfgadm command with the -f option to force a reconfiguration operation. This option, however, might leave your applications in an unknown state. Also, the manual release of resources from applications commonly causes errors.

You can use the new RCM script feature to write your own scripts to shut down your applications. You can write scripts to cleanly release the devices from your applications during dynamic reconfiguration. The RCM framework launches a script automatically in response to a reconfiguration request, if the request impacts the resources that are registered by the script.

See the System Administration Guide: Basic Administration and the rcmscript(4) man page for more information.

mp Program Enhancement

In the mp(1) program enhancement, the mp command is modified to work as an X Print Server client. Configure an X Print Server to run in the host machine. Then the mp command can print output in any Print Description Language that the X Print Server supports. The newly introduced options, -D and -P, can be used for making mp work as an X Print Server client.

For more information, see “Print Filter Enhancement With” in International Language Environments Guide.

SPARC: New Dynamic Reconfiguration Error Messages

The dynamic reconfiguration software has been enhanced to improve troubleshooting dynamic reconfiguration problems.

See the System Administration Guide: Basic Administration and the cfgadm(1M) man page for more information.