Oracle Solaris 11 Networking-Specific Feature Differences

Some of the Oracle VM Server for SPARC networking features work differently when a domain runs the Oracle Solaris 10 OS as compared to the Oracle Solaris 11 OS. The feature differences for the Oracle VM Server for SPARC virtual network device and virtual switch when the Oracle Solaris 11 OS is run in a domain are as follows:

Using an Oracle Solaris 11 etherstub device as a back-end device to create a private virtual switch

If not connected to a back-end device, a virtual switch provides communication only between guest domains and not between guest domains and the service domain. Using an etherstub as a back-end device enables a guest domain to communicate with a zone (including the global zone) that is configured in an Oracle Solaris 11 service domain. This configuration is accomplished by using a VNIC connected to that etherstub.
Using generic names for the virtual switch and virtual network devices

The Oracle Solaris 11 OS assigns generic names for vsw n and vnet n devices. Ensure that you do not create a virtual switch with the back-end device that is another vsw or vnet device. Use the dladm show-phys command to see the actual physical devices that are associated with generic network device names.
Using an Oracle Solaris 11 VNIC to create a VLAN on an Ethernet stub

Do not configure VLANs on the virtual switch interface for Oracle Solaris 11 service domains because this configuration is not supported. Instead, create the VLAN on the interface that corresponds to the virtual switch's net-dev property value.

The following example shows how to create VNICs on an Ethernet stub. The dladm create-etherstub command creates an Ethernet stub, estub100, which is a backing device used by the ldm add-vsw command to create the virtual switch. The ldm add-vsw command creates the virtual switch. The dladm create-vnic command creates a VNIC on top of the etherstub to create the VLAN for that virtual switch.
```
primary# dladm create-etherstub estub100
primary# ldm add-vsw net-dev=estub100 vid=100 inter-vnet-link=off \
primary-vsw100 primary
primary# dladm create-vnic -l estub100 -m auto -v 100 vnic100
```
The following ldm add-vnet commands create two VNICs that enable communication between the ldg1 and ldg2 domains over VLAN 100.
```
primary# ldm add-vnet vid=100 ldg1-vnet100 primary-vsw100 ldg1
primary# ldm add-vnet vid=100 ldg2-vnet100 primary-vsw100 ldg2
```
In the following example, the dladm commands create VLANs on the ldg1 and ldg2 guest domains. The ipadm commands create IP addresses for the VNICs that you created on the ldg1 and ldg2 domains.
```
ldg1# dladm create-vlan -l net1 -v 100 vlan100
ldg1# ipadm create-ip vlan100
ldg1# ipadm create-ipaddr -T static -a 192.168.100.10/24 vlan100/v4
ldg2# dladm create-vlan -l net1 -v 100 vlan100
ldg2# ipadm create-ip vlan100
ldg2# ipadm create-ipaddr -T static -a 192.168.100.20/24 vlan100/v4
```
Using generic names for the virtual switch and virtual network devices

The Oracle Solaris 11 OS assigns generic names for vsw n and vnet n devices. Ensure that you do not create a virtual switch with the back-end device that is another vsw or vnet device. Use the dladm show-phys command to see the actual physical devices that are associated with generic network device names.
Using VNICs on the virtual switch and virtual network devices

You cannot use VNICs on vsw n devices. An attempt to create a VNIC on vsw n fails.
Using the network observability commands on Oracle Solaris 11 guest domains

You can use the ldm list-netdev and ldm list-netstat commands to obtain information about Oracle Solaris 11 guest domains.