Activating and Deactivating Profiles

User-defined NCPs, Location profiles, and ENMs all have activation-mode properties. The allowable values for each profile are determined by its type.

To manually enable or disable (activate or deactivate) a profile or configuration object, use the netadm enable command or the netadm disable command. Both system-defined and user-defined profiles can be enabled and disabled, if the activation-mode property for the specified profile is set to manual. The activation-mode property is set when you create or modify a profile by using the netcfg command. For more information, see How NWAM Profiles Are Activated.

At any given time, there must be one active NCP and one active Location profile on the system. Enabling a different NCP or location with an activation-mode of manual implicitly deactivates the currently active NCP or Location profile. The current location can also be deactivated, if its activation-mode property is set to manual. If no other locations are available, NWAM falls back to one of the system-defined locations, either the Automatic location, if IP configuration was successful, or the NoNet location. Conditional and system locations can be manually activated, which means that the location remains active until explicitly disabled. This behavior makes it easy to switch a conditional Location profile to “always on.” Disabling the conditional location switches the system back to its normal conditional behavior. When any location is manually enabled, the system does not change the location, even if a conditionally enabled location's conditions are met.

You can also manually enable and disable individual NCUs. Note that the specified NCU must be part of the currently active NCP and must have an activation-mode property of manual. If the NCU class is not specified, all of the NCUs (one link NCU and one interface NCU with that name) are activated or deactivated.

Activation and deactivation of objects is performed asynchronously. Therefore, the request to enable or disable might succeed, while the action (activate or deactivate) fails. A failure of this sort is reflected in the profile's state, which changes to maintenance, indicating that the last action taken on the profile failed. For information about displaying the state of profiles, see Obtaining Information About Profile States.

Example 5-2 Enabling a Profile

The syntax to manually enable a profile is as follows:

netadm enable [ -p profile-type ][ -c ncu-class ] profile-name

If the profile name is not unique, for example, if there are multiple profiles with the same name, but of different types, are on the system, you must also specify the profile type.

The -p option can be used to specify one of the following profile types:

• ncp

• ncu

• loc

• enm

If the configuration object's type is ncu, the -c option can be used to distinguish the NCU class. The -c option is helpful when two NCUs with identical names are on the system.

If the -coption is used, it must specify either phys or ip class type.

In the following example, a location named office is enabled:

$ netadm enable -p loc office

where the profile-type is loc, and the profile-name is office. Note that the -c ncu-class option is not used in this example because the profile type is a location and not an NCP.

$ netadm enable -p ncp user
Enabling ncp 'User'
.
.
.

Note that when you specify profile names, the netadm command is case-insensitive.

Example 5-3 Disabling a Profile

The syntax to manually disable a profile is as follows:

netadm disable [ -p profile-type ][ -c ncu-class ] profile-name

If the profile name is not unique, you must also specify the profile type.

The -p option can be used to specify one of the following profile or object types:

• ncp

• ncu

• loc

• enm

If the configuration object's type is an ncu, the -c option must also be used to distinguish the NCU class.

The NCU class must be specified as either phys or ip.

For example, to manually disable a link NCU named net1, you would type the following command:

$ netadm disable -p ncu -c phys net1

where the profile-type is ncu, and the ncu-class is phys, and the profile-name is net1. Note that the -c ncu-class option is used in this example because the configuration object is an NCU.

Example 5-4 Switching Profiles

To change the active NCP and enable manual configuration, you would type the following command:

$ netadm enable -p ncp DefaultFixed

Similarly, to enable automatic (NWAM) configuration with the Automatic NCP, you would type the following command:

$ netadm enable -p ncp Automatic

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