Solaris 8 Administrator's Guide

Chapter 4. Network Configuration

After undertaking the complex tasks required to configure a single host, planning and setting up an entire network can be daunting. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to configure a Solaris-based network, including the configuration of single or multiple network interfaces, static and dynamic routing, and network troubleshooting. In addition, examples for enabling devices and testing interfaces will be provided.

Creating Networks and Subnets

While Solaris systems are capable of operating in an isolated, non-networked environment, Solaris is a strongly network-oriented operating system. It provides the following tools to support networking, both between hosts on a local area network and to the worldwide Internet:

• Support for single, dual, and quad ethernet devices

• Standardized network device naming

• Support for a wide variety of network devices

• Configuration of interfaces to support IPv4 and IPv6

• Routing using static and dynamic protocols

• Troubleshooting and performance measurement

• Blocking/acess filtering on all TCP and UDP ports

• Transmission using Ethernet and FDDI

• Support for Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks

In combination, these features make it easy to construct Solaris networks, especially networks in which Solaris systems are assigned backbone functions in routing and packet filtering.

A typical Solaris local area network will contain one or more servers, which provide network services to local clients. These clients can be other Solaris systems, ...