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

Networking Enhancements

The Solaris 9 software includes the following networking enhancements:

Sun ONE Application Server Integration

This feature is new for the SPARC platform in the Solaris 9 12/02 release. In the Solaris 9 12/03 release, this feature is also available for the x86 platform.

Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition (formerly iPlanet^TM Application Server) is integrated in the Solaris operating system. The Platform Edition of the Application Server provides the foundation for enterprise-class application services and web services. The server provides a high-performance, small-footprint Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE^TM). J2EE enables the development, deployment, and management of enterprise applications and web services to a broad range of servers, clients, and devices.

The Sun ONE Application Server provides application portability and fast time to market for new Java and Extensible Markup Language (XML) applications. These new applications are J2EE 1.3 platform compatible. The Application Server enables developers to build applications that are based on JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP^TM), Java Servlet, and Enterprise JavaBeans^TM (EJB^TM) technology. This technology supports a broad range of business requirements from small departmental applications to enterprise-scale, mission-critical services.

Feature highlights include the following:

Provides integration of the Sun ONE Message Queue and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server from the Sun ONE Web Server
Provides scalability with enhanced performance
Provides comprehensive web services support – Java Web Services, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
Provides interoperability with the Sun ONE Portal Server 6.0 and Sun ONE Directory Server
Uses the J2EE Reference Implementation

The following name changes have been made:

Sun ONE Message Queue (formerly iPlanet Message Queue for Java)
Sun ONE Web Server (formerly iPlanet Web Server)
Sun ONE Portal Server (formerly iPlanet Portal Server)
Sun ONE Directory Server (formerly iPlanet Directory Server)

For further information, see the Sun ONE Application Server 7 Collection Update 1 (Solaris Edition). Further information about this collection is available at New and Revised Documentation in the Solaris 9 8/03 Release. See also http://wwws.sun.com/software/products/appsrvr/home_appsrvr.html.

For specific licensing terms, refer to the binary code license.

Sun ONE Message Queue

This feature is new for the SPARC platform in the Solaris 9 12/02 release. In the Solaris 9 8/03 release, this feature is also available for the x86 platform.

The Solaris software now supports Java Messaging Service (JMS) applications. This Solaris release uses Sun ONE Message Queue (formerly iPlanet Message Queue for Java) as a JMS provider.

JMS messaging enables applications and application components to exchange messages asynchronously and reliably. Processes that run on different platforms and different operating systems can connect to a common message service to exchange information.

Sun ONE Message Queue, Platform Edition provides a full implementation of the JMS specification. The message queue provides additional features such as the following:

Centralized administration
Tunable performance
Support for the Java Naming and Directory Interface^TM (JNDI)
Support for Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messaging

For further information, see the Sun ONE Message Queue 3.0.1 Administrator's Guide and the Sun ONE Message Queue 3.0.1 Developer's Guide. For information about Sun ONE Message Queue editions and features, see also the following Web site:

http://www.sun.com/software/products/message_queue/

TCP Multidata Transmit

Multidata transmit (MDT) is available only for systems that run a 64-bit kernel. This feature is new in the Solaris 9 8/03 release.

MDT enables the network stack to send more than one packet at one time to the network device driver during transmission. Use of this feature reduces the per-packet processing costs by improving the host CPU utilization or network throughput.

The multidata transmit feature is only effective for device drivers that support this feature.

The following parameter must be enabled in the /etc/system file to use the MDT parameter:

set ip:ip_use_dl_cap = 0x1

MDT is disabled by default. The TCP/IP stack can be instructed to enable MDT as follows:

# ndd -set /dev/ip ip_multidata_outbound 1

Review the following cautions before enabling MDT:

Use of this feature might change the appearance of any packets between the IP layer and the DLPI provider. For example, a third-party STREAMS module might be dynamically inserted between the IP layer and the DLPI provider by using the ifconfig modinsert command. This module might not work. The ifconfig modinsert command does not “understand” the MDT STREAMS data type.
Modules might be inserted between the IP and the DLPI provider with the autopush(1M) mechanism. These modules might not work as well in this case.
Keep this feature disabled when a STREAMS module is not MDT aware. For example, the public domain utilities ipfilter and CheckPoint Firewall-1 are not MDT aware.

For more information, see the Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference Manual and the ip(7P) man page.

Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) 6to4 Router

This feature is new in the Solaris 9 4/03 release.

IPv6 networks can now transfer packets over Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) networks by configuring one or more routers to support a 6to4 tunnel. System administrators can use 6to4 tunnels as a transitional method for migrating their networks from IPv4 to IPv6. This feature implements RFCs 3056 and 3068.

For further information on IPv6, see the IPv6 Administration Guide.

Packet Tunneling Over IPv6

This feature is new in the Solaris 9 9/02 release.

This feature enables tunneling over IPv6 for both IPv4 over IPv6 tunnels and IPv6 over IPv6 tunnels. IPv4 packets or IPv6 packets can be encapsulated in IPv6 packets.

For more information, see the IPv6 Administration Guide.

Hosting Multiple Web Sites on a Single Solaris Machine

This feature is new in the Solaris 9 12/02 release.

The Solaris Network Cache and Accelerator (NCA) kernel module now supports multiple instances of a web server. This support enables you to use a Solaris machine to perform Internet protocol (IP) address-based virtual web hosting. The Solaris software uses a single configuration file, /etc/nca/ncaport.conf, to map NCA sockets to IP addresses.

For further information, see the ncaport.conf(4) man page.

IP Quality of Service

This feature is new in the Solaris 9 9/02 release.

IP Quality of Service (IPQoS) enables system administrators to provide different levels of network service to customers and to critical applications. By using IPQoS, the administrator can set up service-level agreements. These agreements provide an Internet service provider's (ISP) clients with varying levels of service that are based on a price structure. A company could also use IPQoS to prioritize among applications so that critical applications get a higher quality of service than less critical applications.

For further information, see the IPQoS Administration Guide.

User Selector for Internet Protocol Quality of Service (IPQoS)

This feature is new in the Solaris 9 8/03 release.

The Solaris IPQoS feature now includes the user selector, which supplements the existing uid selector. The user selector enables you to specify a user name or userID as criteria in a filter clause in the ipqosconf file. Previously, the uid selector only accepted a userID as a value. The following filter clause from an ipqosconf file shows the user selector:

filter {
        name myhost;
        user root;
}

For information about filters and selectors, refer to the IPQoS Administration Guide and the ipqosconf(1M) man page.

Routing Information Protocol Version 2 (RIPv2)

This feature is new in the Solaris 9 9/02 release.

Solaris system software now supports Routing Information Protocol version 2 (RIPv2).

RIPv2 adds Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) and Variable-Length Subnet Mask (VLSM) extensions to the RIPv1 protocol. Message Digest 5 (MD5) extensions protect routers against intentional misdirection by malicious users. The new in.routed implementation also includes a built-in Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Router Discovery (RFC 1256) mechanism.

RIPv2 supports multicast, if the point-to-point links are enabled with multicast. RIPv2 also supports unicast. If you configure a broadcast address by using the /etc/gateways file, then RIPv2 supports broadcast.

For information on how to configure RIPv2, see the in.rdisc(1M), in.routed(1M), and gateways(4) man pages.