Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!nycmny1-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!colt.net!fr.colt.net!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!isdnet!209.249.90.60.MISMATCH!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-04!supernews.com!news-west.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!lsnws01.we.mediaone.net!cyclone-LA3.rr.com!typhoon.san.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Dan Anderson Newsgroups: alt.solaris.x86,comp.unix.solaris,alt.answers,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: Solaris x86 FAQ Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Summary: This posting answers frequently-asked questions from the alt.solaris.x86 newsgroup that aren't already covered in the Solaris 2 FAQ. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post Solaris x86 questions to the alt.solaris.x86 or comp.unix.solaris newsgroups. Followup-To: alt.solaris.x86 User-Agent: tin/1.4.2-20000205 ("Possession") (UNIX) (Linux/2.4.5 (i586)) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 2318 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2001 19:29:53 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.74.204.151 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: typhoon.san.rr.com 994102193 66.74.204.151 (Mon, 02 Jul 2001 12:29:53 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2001 12:29:53 PDT Organization: Road Runner Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.solaris.x86:41146 comp.unix.solaris:315847 alt.answers:56380 comp.answers:46078 news.answers:210505 Archive-name: Solaris2/x86/FAQ Posting-Frequency: monthly Last-modified: 2001/07/02 URL: http://sun.drydog.com/faq/ Version: 2.18 Copyright: Copyright © 1997-2001 Dan Anderson. All rights reserved. Maintainer: Dan Anderson , San Diego, California, USA _________________________________________________________________ (1.0) TABLE OF CONTENTS (2.0) INTRODUCTION (3.0) RESOURCES (3.1) + What web and FTP sites do I need to know about? (3.2) How do I subscribe to the Solaris/x86 mailing list? (3.3) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 maintenance updates? (3.4) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 patches? (3.5) How can I obtain freeware, shareware, and GNU software on a CD-ROM? (3.6) What UNIX-like operating systems are available on x86? (3.7) What books are available on Solaris x86? (3.8) What magazine articles are available on Solaris x86? (3.9) What's new for Solaris 8 Intel? (3.10) What's new for the next release of Solaris? (4.0) PRE-INSTALLATION (4.1) What information should I have before an install? (4.2) What hardware is supported by Solaris 2.x for Intel? (4.3) What size disks and partitions should I have? (4.4) What are SCSI IDs expected by Solaris x86? (4.5) What video card/monitor combination works best? (4.6) Is Plug-and-Play (PNP) supported by Solaris/x86? (4.7) Is Advanced Power Management (APM) supported by Solaris/x86? (4.8) Are "floppy tape" devices supported by Solaris x86? (4.9) How can I get a "free" copy of Solaris? (4.10) What's missing from the "free" copy of Solaris that's in the commercial version? (4.11) How do you create a Device Configuration Assistant (DCA) Diskette in DOS/Windows? (4.12) How can I get Solaris to see the third ATAPI controller? (4.13) Are Ultra DMA (UDMA) drives supported? (4.14) Are Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices supported? (4.15) Are Microsoft Intellimouse mice supported? (4.16) What's the difference between Solaris x86 Server and Solaris x86 Desktop? (4.17) Solaris doesn't recognize all of my large (>40GB) ATAPI. For example, a 60GB disk shows up as only 28GB. (4.18) Is Solaris Intel 64-bit aware? (4.19) What's the difference between partitions and slices? (5.0) INSTALLATION (5.1) How long does the install take? (5.2) My ATAPI CD-ROM isn't recognized during install by Solaris' FCS MCB and it's not in the HCL. What can I do? (5.3) What kind of problems might I encounter installing my SCSI system? (5.4) What do I do when the install hangs/panics? (5.5) I'm trying to install Solaris/x86 on my ATAPI drive. However, the installation program says the root partition must end within the first 1023 cylinders of the disk. What can I do? (5.6) Does Solaris x86 prefer to have the motherboard BIOS set to NORMAL or LBA for ATAPI disks? (5.7) Why does a Solaris install to a disk with valid, pre-existing fdisk partitions sometimes fail? (5.8) How do I add a 8 GB or greater ATAPI drive to Solaris 7 or earlier? (5.9) How do I install or use the documentation CD? (5.10) Help! I get a "VTOC" error installing Solaris. (6.0) POST-INSTALLATION (CUSTOMIZATION) (6.1) How do I add additional drives? (6.2) How do I add or configure users, printers, serial ports, software, etc.? (6.3) How do I suppress the banner page on my printer? (6.4) How do I set up an HP-compatible printer to print PostScript files? (6.5) How can I improve disk and graphic performance? (6.6) How do I get Solaris to recognize a NE2000 compatible NIC card? (6.7) How do I get Solaris to recognize generic network cards with well-known chipsets? (6.7) + How do I change the IP address or hostname or both on Solaris/x86? (6.8) How do I configure another serial port, /dev/ttyb-ttyd (COM2-4)? (6.9) How do I disable Solaris/x86 from probing the UPS on COM2? (6.10) How do I set up Solaris/x86 to use PPP to connect to an ISP? (6.11) Is there any open source PPP that's easier to use than Sun's aspppd? (6.12) Is there any commercial PPP that's easier to use? (6.14) Help! My USRobotics Internal modem doesn't work with PPP. (6.15) PPP runs extremely slow. What's wrong? (6.16) How do I configure PPP using Dynamic IP Addresses (DHCP)? (6.17) How do I configure my SoundBlaster card? (6.18) How do I enable the audio output from my CDROM to my SBPRO card? (6.19) Is Solaris/x86 Year 2000 (Y2K) compliant? (6.20) Can I use Solaris/x86 to setup a "headless" server? (6.21) Can I get a Sun-style keyboard (Ctrl & Caps Lock reversed) for S/x86? (6.22) Can I run multiple terminals on the console of Solaris x86 like those supported on Linux, FreeBSD, Interactive Unix, and SCO? (6.23) How do I upgrade my video graphics card? (6.24) How to I burn a CD-R or CD-RW with Solaris? (6.25) Is IPv6 available for Solaris/x86? (6.26) Is IPsec available for Solaris/x86? (6.27) Is Kerberos 5 available for Solaris/x86? (6.28) Does Solaris x86 support multiple processors? (6.29) How do I uncompress a .gz file? (6.30) Why doesn't /usr/bin/cc work? (6.31) How do you get PGP 2.6.2 to compile on Solaris/x86? (6.32) How do you connect Solaris to @Home? (6.33) How do you setup Solaris to use Time Warner's RoadRunner service? (6.34) How do I force the speed and/or duplex of my network interfaces (ndd(1M) doesn't work)? (6.35) Why can't I create a home directory under /home? (6.36) Is Veritas file system available for Solaris Intel? (6.37) How to I use Zip and Jaz Drives for Solaris Intel? (6.38) How to I use Linux NIC drivers for Solaris Intel? (6.39) How to I add color to "ls" or "vi"? (6.40) How to I move the disk containing Solaris from the ATAPI primary master controller to the secondary controller or slave connector (or both)? (6.41) I've installed Solaris using Sun's brain dead disk slice defaults. How do I modify my slices? (6.42) How do I mirror root with Disksuite when /boot is a separate fdisk partition? (7.0) TROUBLESHOOTING (7.1) What can I do if Solaris won't boot? (7.2) How do I restore the Solaris boot block without reinstalling? (7.3) What can I do during the Solaris/x86 booting sequence? (7.4) How do I logon as root if the password doesn't work anymore? (7.5) My licensed software fails because the host ID is 0. What's wrong? (7.6) How can I fix Netscape Communicator to render fonts correctly on S/x86? (7.7) Why doesn't Netscape run as root? (7.8) I moved my PCI host adapter to another slot and the system won't boot! (7.9) Why is Solaris always booting into the Device Configuration Assistant? (7.10) What is the equivalent of STOP-A for Solaris Intel? (7.11) How can I reboot Solaris x86 without it asking me to "press a key" before rebooting? (7.12) Help! I'm stuck in the "Boot Assistant" and can't boot. What do I do? (8.0) X WINDOWS (8.1) How do you install XFree86 on Solaris? (8.2) How do I configure 64K colors for CDE? (8.3) How do I Add Gnome, KDE, or other non-CDE Window (8.4) Where can I get GNOME or KDE packages for Solaris/x86? (8.5) Are TrueType fonts supported in Solaris? (8.6) How do I make XFree86 version 3.x- or XiG Xaccel 5.0.3- work with Solaris 8? (8.7) How do I disable CDE auto-start upon booting multi-user? (8.8) How do I su(1) to another user and run an X application? (8.9) Does Solaris Intel support multiple heads? (8.10) How do I get my 2-button mouse to emulate 3 buttons? (9.0) INTEROPERABILITY WITH OTHER OPERATING SYSTEMS (9.1) Can I install Solaris x86 on a system that already has Win 9x or NT or 2K (among other systems)? (9.2) How can I use MS Windows' NT Loader to boot Solaris/x86? (9.3) How can I use the Solaris boot manager to boot Windows NT? (9.4) How can I use System Commander to boot Solaris/x86 and other systems? (9.5) Can I install Linux and Solaris on the same drive? (9.6) How can I use LILO to boot Solaris/x86 on the primary slave ATAPI? (9.7) How can I use OS-BS or System Selector to boot Solaris/x86? (9.8) How can I boot both Solaris/x86 and Win NT on the same disk? (9.9) How do I mount a DOS partition from the hard drive? (9.10) Does PartitionMagic and BootMagic understand Solaris partitions? (9.11) How do I access a DOS-format diskette from Solaris? (9.12) Does Solaris mount and recognize Win 9x partitions with long file names (VFAT)? (9.13) How can I make my Solaris files easily available to Windows 9x/NT on a network? (9.14) How can I make my Solaris files easily available to an Apple Macintosh on a network? (9.15) How do I access a Mac diskette from Solaris? (9.16) What is WABI? (9.17) Can I use SunPCi on Solaris/x86? (9.18) Will Linux programs run on Solaris 2/x86? (9.19) How can I get the DOS and UNIX clock to agree on Solaris/x86? (9.20) Is Solaris x86 able to execute Solaris SPARC applications? (9.21) Will my old applications from SVR3 or SCO run on Solaris 2/x86? (9.22) Will my application from Solaris/SPARC work on Solaris/x86? I have the source. (9.23) Can I access Solaris/x86 partitions from Linux? (9.24) Can I access Linux (ext2fs) partitions from Solaris? (9.25) What are some books on Wijdows NT/Solaris integration? (9.26) How can I view MS Word files in Solaris? (9.27) I downloaded Internet Explorer (or Media Player) but it doesn't install. What's wrong? (9.28) + Where can I get Netscape for Solaris Intel? (9.29) Can I mount other ufs disks, say from BSDi/FreeBSD, and vice versa? (9.30) How can I use a disk partition on Solaris 2.x which was previously dedicated to Windows 95 (or other OS) as dual boot? (9.31) How can I convert a DOS/Windows text file to a Unix text file? (9.32) Can VMWARE be used with Solaris x86? (9.33) Is Solaris on Intel really "Slowaris"--slower than other Intel-based operating systems? (9.34) How can I remove (uninstall) Solaris from my hard drive? (9.35) I can install Linux on a system with Solaris x86, but why can't I boot it? *New question since last month. +Significantly revised answer since last month. _________________________________________________________________ (2.0) INTRODUCTION The Solaris x86 FAQ: Frequently-asked Questions about Solaris on Intel - x86. This posting contains frequently-asked questions, with answers, about the Sun Solaris 2 Operating System on the Intel Platform (x86) found in the alt.solaris.x86 and comp.unix.solaris USENET newsgroups. The alt.solaris.x86 newsgroup covers Solaris on the Intel platform, for version 2.5 and higher. The most up-to-date copy of this FAQ is at http://sun.drydog.com/faq/ The comp.unix.solaris newsgroup is for Solaris on all platforms-- Sparc or Intel. Please also consult Casper Dik's excellent FAQ on Solaris 2, which mostly applies to Solaris x86 too. It's at: http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2/ and elsewhere. Solaris 7 and 8 are also known as SunOS 5.7 and 5.8. Solaris 2.x is also known as SunOS 5.x. For earlier versions of Solaris/x86, please see the (somewhat dated) "Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ" by Bob Palowoda archived at various dusty corners on the net. The (mostly historical) Sun i386 (Roadrunner) is covered in Ralph Neill's FAQ, http://www.sunhelp.com/386i/faq.html. If you post questions to alt.solaris.x86 or comp.unix.solaris, please be sure to indicate: * the machine type and brief configuration, e.g. Pentium II 450 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 200 MB swap space, 8 GB XYZ hard drive, etc., * the exact Solaris version number, i.e. Solaris 7 is NOT sufficient, whereas "Solaris/x86 7 HW 3/99" is more useful. I'm doing this on my own time as a public service. PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME QUESTIONS THAT SHOULD BE ASKED OF SUN. Although I am now employed by Sun Microsystems, as of February 1999, I have never worked at Sun on this particular product. Nothing I say is endorsed or approved by Sun. If you suspect you have software defect problems, please call 1-800-SOFTSPT (1-800-763-8778 or 1-510-460-3267). If you have hardware problems call your hardware vendor. If you are outside the United States, contact your local Sun representative. PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME QUESTIONS THAT SHOULD BE POSTED TO alt.solaris.x86 or comp.unix.solaris. I don't have the time to diagnose individual Solaris problems, and I probably don't know the answer either :-). Many experienced and knowledgeable people read the newsgroup. Post your question there. However, answers, corrections, and comments should be directed to me. No FAQ is the work of one person, but is a USENET community effort. This material was "snarfed" from other FAQs, USENET newsgroup postings, mailing lists, and personal knowledge. Generally the source is noted at the end of each question. Most answers have been reworded, or expanded, or updated. Thanks to everyone who contributed directly or indirectly. Please send any corrections or additions to me. This FAQ is Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Dan Anderson. All rights reserved. Tous droits réservés. It may be freely redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice isn't removed. Permission is expressly granted for this document to be made available for file transfer from installations offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet. This article is provided "as is" in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, SunSoft, the SunSoft logo, Java, Solaris, SunOS, and NFS are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems., Inc. SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing the SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Adobe and PostScript are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. HP is a trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. Pentium® II Xeon is a trademark of Intel Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Microsoft, MS, MS-DOS, MS Windows, and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. Netscape is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corp. Netscape® Communicator is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corp. Open Source is a registered certification mark of Open Source Initiative. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other product names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. -Dan Anderson dan@drydog.com or https://dan.drydog.com/comment.html alt.solaris.x86 FAQ Maintainer San Diego, California, USA _________________________________________________________________ (3.0) RESOURCES (3.1) What web and FTP sites do I need to know about? http://sun.drydog.com/faq/ The latest version of this FAQ is always at this URL. It's available in text and HTML formats. This FAQ also appears in the alt.solaris.x86 or comp.unix.solaris newsgroups and on various FAQ archives. Check the date at the top of this FAQ to make sure you have a recent version. If you don't have USENET news access, you can search past postings and post your own messages at http://groups.google.com/ http://www.Sun.COM/intel/ Sun's web site for Solaris on Intel, contains pointers to Solaris Intel product information, updates, resources, news, etc. http://SolDC.Sun.COM/ Sun's Software Support and Education website. Has Intel maintenance updates (MUs), knowledge base, Hardware Compatibility List (HCL), device drivers, patches, and Device Configuration Assistant (DCA) boot diskette images. This website requires (free) registration to use. Links to Sun and 3rd-party drivers for Solaris x86 are at http://soldc.sun.com/support/drivers/ http://access1.Sun.COM/ site. Sun's download website for patches and various technical documents. MUs are at http://access1.sun.com/Products/solaris/mu/ (SolDC Registration (free) required for MUs). Public patches (and patch clusters) are at http://access1.sun.com/patch.public/ http://docs.Sun.COM/ Sun documentation on-line. Includes manuals, guides, answerbooks, and man pages in HTML format. Especially useful for configuring new hardware and new systems is the Information Library for Solaris (Intel Platform Edition). http://sun.drydog.com/bookstore/ My Solaris online bookstore, in association with Amazon.com, where you can read reviews on selected Solaris books and order Solaris or other books. http://www.stokely.com/unix.sysadm.resources/faqs.sun.html#s86.fa qs.link Stokely Consulting's list of FAQs has lots of pointers resources, not only for Solaris x86, but UNIX System Administration in general. http://sunfreeware.com/ S. Christensen's Solaris Freeware Page. Pointers to LOTS of x86 pre-packaged GNU and other open-source software. http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-10694/helpers.html Pointers to many Solaris viewers, players, and Netscape plug-ins. http://www.laxmi.net/cde.htm CDE (Common Desktop Environment) FAQ http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/packages/solaris/i86pc/ Selected Solaris Intel/x86 binaries conveniently packaged in pkgadd format at the University of North Carolina (formerly Sunsite). ftp://x86.cs.duke.edu/pub/solaris-x86/bins/index.html Joe Shamblin's annotated collection of Solaris x86 open source, with pointers to documentation, make it good for open source browsing. This site appears to be dormant (last updated circa 1998). http://fishbutt.fiver.net/ Bob Palowoda's Solaris x86 Corner, with tips and benchmarks. http://sun.drydog.com/ My Solaris Intel Webpage has includes a search engine that indexes selected websites containing Solaris Intel information, including those listed here. Also contains the latest version of this FAQ and my online bookstore (in association with Amazon.com). http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2/ Last, but not least, Casper Dik's thorough FAQ on Solaris 2. This entire FAQ is available as one file at: http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html _________________________________________________________________ (3.2) How do I subscribe to the Solaris/x86 mailing list? Subscribe by sending an e-mail message to or visit the eGroups' Solaris on Intel web page at http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/ You DON'T have to register to join the list, but you do have to register to read the list archives on the web (sorted by thread and date). Sun maintains a similar "Solaris on Intel" discussion forum. To access it, go to http://forum.sun.com/ and select "Solaris on Intel". _________________________________________________________________ (3.3) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 maintenance updates? Starting with Solaris 7, Sun includes the drivers in the Maintenance Updates (MUs) and updated versions of the OS. These are available at http://access1.Sun.COM/Products/solaris/mu/ (free access, but you must register with "solregis" or at http://SolDC.Sun.COM/ if you didn't during your Solaris install) Update (6/2001): MUs for Solaris 8 now require a service contract (that is, money$$$$$). Older Solaris 6 and earlier driver updates (DUs) are at http://SolDC.Sun.COM/support/drivers/ [Thanks to Alan Coopersmith] _________________________________________________________________ (3.4) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 patches? The Solaris x86 driver updates can be obtained by HTTP from: ftp://sunsolve.Sun.COM/ A listing sorted by release is available by clicking on "Patches" at the SunSolve web page, http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/ Pointers to patches, including one huge *_x86_Recommended.tar.Z file for each release. This directory is publicly accessible--it doesn't require you to be a contract customer. Patches are also available locally at many SunSites. The "showrev -p" command shows what patches you have installed. All files replaced by a patch are saved under /var/sadm/patch/ or /var/sadm/pkg/ _________________________________________________________________ (3.5) How can I obtain freeware, shareware, and GNU software on a CD-ROM? Micromata of Kassel, Germany offers its "Summertime" CD with precompiled software for Solaris SPARC and Intel, http://www.micromata.com/summertime/ See question 3.1 above for FTP and web software sites. _________________________________________________________________ (3.6) What UNIX-like operating systems are available on x86? * Solaris x86, SVR4-based (http://www.Sun.COM/) * Interactive UNIX, SVR3.2-based (http://www.Sun.COM/software/ius/) * SCO OpenServer UNIX, SVR3.2-based (http://www.sco.com/) * SCO UNIXWare, SVR4-based (http://www.sco.com/) * BSD/OS (http://www.bsdi.com/) * Linux (http://www.linuxresources.com/, open source) * FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org/, open source) * NetBSD (http://www.netbsd.org/, open source) * OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org/, open source) Note that the open source versions can also be purchased on CD-ROM, which is a convenient way to get it. For Linux, there are multiple vendors selling CD-ROMs (e.g., RedHat, http://www.redhat.com/). Other systems are over the horizon, in beta, or for teaching/research. E.g., GNU's HURD, Apple's Rhapsody, Tanenbaum's Minix, or ATT's Plan 9. Of course, Intel's 64-bit Itanium (Merced) or McKinley CPU families (or both) are coming. Sun, HP, SCO, and DEC are all porting their versions of UNIX, Solaris, HP-UX, UNIXWare, and Digital UNIX, to this chip. _________________________________________________________________ (3.7) What books are available on Solaris x86? For Unix system administration in general, I like Unix System Administration Handbook, 3d ed. by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass, and Trent R. Hein (Prentice Hall, 1995), ISBN 0-13-020601-7 http://sun.drydog.com/bookstore/#0131510517 Ron Ledesma has written PC Hardware Configuration Guide for DOS and Solaris (SunSoft Press, 1994), ISBN 0-13-124678-X, http://sun.drydog.com/bookstore/#013124678x. It's a well-written, but dated, book on setting up Solaris x86 on Intel Architecture. There's also Solaris 2.X for Managers and Administrators by Curt Freeland, Dwight McKay, Kent Parkinson, 2d ed. (1997), ISBN: 1-56690-150-2, http://sun.drydog.com/bookstore/#1566901502 The following two books by Janice Winsor cover Solaris 2.6 for SPARC and x86. They are from Sun Microsystems/Macmillan Technical Publishing. I find they cover the subject matter too lightly, but they may be good for beginners: Solaris System Administrator's Guide, 2d ed. (1998), ISBN 1-57870-040-X, http://sun.drydog.com/bookstore/#157870040x, and Solaris Advanced System Administrator's Guide, 2d ed., ISBN 1-57870-039-6, http://sun.drydog.com/bookstore/#1578700396, Other books are available on Solaris in general from SunSoft Books and on UNIX (with sections on Solaris) from O'Reilly and Associates. Hardcopies of Sun manuals are available as SunDocs from SunExpress. Please visit my on-line bookstore, http://sun.drydog.com/bookstore/, in association with Amazon.com, where you can order books on Solaris or any other topic. I get paid a few percent of most books ordered there. _________________________________________________________________ (3.8) What magazine articles are available on Solaris x86? "Sun injects Solaris X86 with new life as it makes its way to 64 bits" Sun World. Feb. 1997 by Rick Cook. http://www.Sun.COM/sunworldonline/swol-02-1997/swol-02-solarisX86 .html Note: please e-mail other submissions to dan@drydog.com. _________________________________________________________________ (3.9) What's new for Solaris 8 Intel? Here's the more-notable improvements: * ISA and EISA device support is removed (use PCI!). * USB support * ACPI support * The 8G boot disk limit for ATAPI disks is removed. * Sun will add Pyramid/Siemens-Nixdorf's Reliability, Availability and Scalability (RAS) functionality and Reliant UNIX clustering and scalability into Solaris. NCR will add MP-RAS (diagnostics, remote support...). Fujitsu will add improved RAS and advanced diagnostics. * X11 R6.4 (Xinerama) * IPv6 (128-bit IP addresses) * Perl 5.00503 * Java 2 * gzip and lots of other GNU utilities * New drivers, such as for Adaptec Ultra2 This is a partial list. For more details, see _What's New in the Solaris 8 Operating Environment_ at http://docs.Sun.COM/. Some people don't like the "Java Webstart Installation." (which actually has nothing to do with the web!). However, you can still boot and install with the "Software 1 of 2" disk. Solaris 8 Intel removed the 8GB limit on IDE hard drives (SSCI has no such limit). Also, Solaris 8 requires 64MB or the installation will abort (the documentation is out-of-date). [Thanks to Igor Sobrado Delgado, Thomas Tornblom, William Malloy, Paul Carver, and Alan Coopersmith] _________________________________________________________________ (3.10) What's new for the next release of Solaris? Officially, the release after Solaris 8, variously called Solaris 8.1 or Solaris 9, will contain Integrated Java and Jini. _________________________________________________________________ (4.0) PRE-INSTALLATION (4.1) What information should I have before an install? * Size of your disk * Ethernet hardware address * IP address * Bandwidth of your video card and monitor * Maximum vertical frequency your video card will drive * Mouse type The size of your disk determines what cluster you are going to install on your system. I.e., an End User cluster, a Developers Cluster or the Complete Cluster. See references to how to size your OS when installing. The Ethernet hardware address from your Ethernet card would be helpful if you're on a NIS net and your going to do net installs. You would like to have the Ethernet address in the /etc/ethers map file before you do an install. Usually the manufacturer of an Ethernet card will have some software that you can run under DOS to display this number or sometimes you can find the Ethernet number on a sticker right on the Ethernet card. If this is on a standalone network you probably don't need to know the Ethernet hardware address. Don't confuse this with the software IP address. Bandwidth of your monitor and video card are important. During the install the install process is going to ask you for the size of your monitor and what vertical resolution you want to drive the monitor at. Note that in the update disk documentation they give a handy dandy monitor resolution bandwidth for monitors in the appendix. You may want to check this out. See other references on video cards and monitors throughout the FAQ. The install process will ask you about your mouse type. [From Bob Palowoda's Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ] _________________________________________________________________ (4.2) What hardware is supported by Solaris 2.x for Intel? Solaris x86 is the version that runs on Intel-based PCs and servers. Requirements vary to release, but generally a 80486 processor or better is required with an ISA or PCI bus, 16 MB of memory, and 200-500 MB Disk. Many multi-processor boards are supported. You must have a CD-ROM drive or access to NFS over the network to install and a 1.44 MB floppy disk drive. The Solaris x86 Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) lists the tested hardware. However, not all hardware combinations will work. Also, hardware not listed may work, but are not guaranteed or supported. To receive the complete and often updated list Solaris x86 Hardware Compatibility List (HCL), send an e-mail message (no subject/body needed) to: x86-hwconfig@Cypress.West.Sun.COM There's also an online version of all the lists at: http://SolDC.Sun.COM/support/drivers/hcl/ For troublesome devices and cards, I find Solaris 7 (Intel Platform Edition) Device Configuration Guide at http://docs.Sun.COM/ab2/coll.214.4/HWCONFIG/@Ab2TocView? very useful. (if the link changed, go to http://docs.Sun.COM, click on "Installation & Setup," then "Installation Collection," then "Device Config. Guide." You'll also find the HCL and other guides. [Updated from Casper Dik's Solaris 2 FAQ] _________________________________________________________________ (4.3) What size disks and partitions should I have? If you install all of Solaris, with no AnswerBook2 on disk, you typically need to have 1 GB plus space for optional software and data and log files. This can be pared down (e.g., by not installing Asian fonts), but with today's large disks, I usually install all of Solaris. Solaris uses a tmpfs where both the swap area and /tmp share a common disk space. Configure about 200 MB of swap space on a single user system. Many programs use the tmpfs for speeding up applications. My swap file is usually 1.5 times my physical memory. Solaris installation usually suggests several filesystems. However, for workstations, I recommend a simple layout with just two slices in the Solaris partition: root (/) and swap (/tmp). and everything else goes in the root (/) filesystem. If you're expecting a lot of overflow from /var (usually on servers), consider creating a separate /var filesystem (say 200 MB or more, depending on your needs). _________________________________________________________________ (4.4) What are SCSI IDs expected by Solaris x86? These are the typical values for SCSI devices. For tape and CD-ROM, these are the defaults used in the /etc/vold.conf file for controlling the vold mounter. You can set them to other ID's but remember to adjust the vold.conf file to the new values. Boot drive ID 0 Second drive ID 1 Tape ID 4 CDROM ID 6 SCSI controller ID 7 [From Bob Palowoda's Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ] _________________________________________________________________ (4.5) What video card/monitor combination works best? Some questions will arise when trying to configure your video card and monitor size. The most critical area is when you do the install and answer the questions about the vertical HZ, screen size 14, 15, 17, 21-inch, etc. If you get it wrong you get the squiggles. First, find your video card manual. Ha! I can here the laughs from across the world. What manual? If this is the case just select the slowest vertical HZ. You can always change it later after the system is up with kdmconfig. Resolution: be safe and just use 1024x768 or smaller the first time through the install. Latter, boost it up to 16 million colors and specify a bigger monitor size. Screen size should be easy: [\] about that big. If you don't know the video card type just select the standard vga8 to do the install. Hopefully when your system boots it displays what video card you have in it. A good video card combination such as the ATI and Sony 17sei can allow you to drive it at 76Hz vertical 1280x1024 on a 17-inch screen. Hint: Look in the update readme files and at the end in one of the appendices you'll find a chart of monitors and there scan rates. Usually good to refer to before you buy the monitor and video card combination. You could have a very nice high bandwidth monitor and a lousy video card that can't drive it hard enough. Or visa versa, a good video card that can drive a high bandwidth but the monitor just can't handle it. Another Hint: Even though there's no 14-inch monitor on the configuration menu you can select the 15-inch setting. If the 14-inch monitor has a good bandwidth it will sync up. [Modified from Bob Palowoda's Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ] _________________________________________________________________ (4.6) Is Plug-and-Play (PNP) supported by Solaris/x86? Yes, with release 2.6 and latter. Solaris 2.5.1 and earlier (even with the DUs), do NOT support PNP. PNP should be disabled and the card manually configured for the latter case. Sun FAQ 2234-02 at http://access1.Sun.COM/cgi-bin/rinfo2html?223402.faq has instructions for configuring Solaris to recognize specific PNP devices. See the Solaris 7 (Intel Platform Edition) Device Configuration Guide (mentioned above) for details on each device (and see the Driver Update Guide when using updates). Personally, I find it a lot easier to disable PNP on cards that have that option. Boot into DOS or Windows (with a diskette if you have to) and run your card manufacturer's utility or configuration or diagnostic program. I also disable the BIOS setting "OS supports PNP". PNP can be tricky with Solaris sometimes. To display your current system configuration run "prtconf -pv" _________________________________________________________________ (4.7) Is Advanced Power Management (APM) supported by Solaris/x86? APM isn't really supported on x86. Solaris is "APM tolerant" which means that if APM can do everything transparently to Solaris, it will work. If it isn't transparent, Solaris gets confused. So, SPARC has power management in the OS but x86 does not. [Thanks to Doug McCallum] _________________________________________________________________ (4.8) Are "floppy tape" devices supported by Solaris x86? No. You have to use a SCSI tape backup device. Other options include purchasing a zip drive, which is supported (except on the parallel port), or backing-up your files to a MS-DOS/MS Windows partition and back it up from MS DOS/MS Windows or some other operating system. _________________________________________________________________ (4.9) How can I get a "free" copy of Solaris? A "free" copy of Solaris for personal use (where "free" means the license is free--you pay only media, shipping, and handling cost), is available from here: For *.edu (Educational users): http://www.Sun.COM/edu/solaris/ For all others: http://www.Sun.COM/developers/tools/solaris/ I also have this link: http://www.Sun.COM/solaris/freesolaris.html For Solaris 8, the cost is US$75 for the media kit (CDROMs). This includes Solaris software, StarOffice 5.1, iPlanet, Netscape, Oracle8i, AnswerBook documentation, and a CD with a lot of GNU and other open source software. You can now (2/2001) download Solaris iso (CD) images for "free," without even paying media costs. The three iso images are about 800MB and are compressed with pkzip. See http://www.Sun.COM/intel/ for details. The download version includes everything but the Oracle CD, the Open Source "Software Companion" CD, and the StarOffice CD (the latter is available for download separately though). If you download and have problems, make sure you download in "binary" mode (check that the file size matches exactly). Some CD burning software (especially for Windoze) requires the downloaded files be renamed to have a ".iso" extension. _________________________________________________________________ (4.10) What's missing from the "free" copy of Solaris that's in the commercial version? The following CD is supplied with the commercial version but not with the free version: Software Supplement for Solaris 7. The latter contains SunVTS, ODBC Driver Manager, Solaris on Sun Hardware AnswerBook, PC file viewer, ShowMe, and SunFDDI. OpenGL is only in the commercial Sparc version of Solaris (it's available with XFree86 for Intel though). [Thanks to Mike Mann and Alan Coopersmith] _________________________________________________________________ (4.11) How do you create a Device Configuration Assistant (DCA) Diskette in DOS/Windows? The DCA diskette is used for booting, in lieu of booting from CDROM or hard disk. The DCA diskette comes with the Solaris media, but you need to "roll your own" if you downloaded Solaris or if your DCA diskette becomes corrupted. To create the diskette, follow these steps: 1. Download DOS program dd.exe, which is used to write the DCA image, from http://SolDC.Sun.COM/support/drivers/tools/ or ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/sun/solaris/x86/dd.exe 2. Download the DCA diskette image for the Solaris x86 version that you want to install (for example, S8_0101.3) from http://SolDC.Sun.COM/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/ 3. Run dd.exe to copy the image to the floppy diskette: dd.exe a: You have now created a (bootable) Solaris DCA diskette. [Thanks to Sean G.W. Graham] _________________________________________________________________ (4.12) How can I get Solaris to see the third ATAPI controller? Solaris 7 can be configured to support any ATAPI compliant controller which doesn't conflict with any existing device. The key factor is that its interfaces must be complaint with the ATAPI specs. In other words, you need two ranges of non-conflicting I/O ports, and an free IRQ, and hardware that's compliant with at least the ATA-2 and SFF-8020 specs. If it's a legacy-ISA ATA controller than you'll have to manually configure everything via the Device Configuration Assistant (DCA) menus because the DCA only automatically probes for ISA-IDE devices at the two standard address ranges. If you're adding a compliant PnP-ISA ATAPI controller or a compliant PCI-IDE controller then the DCA should automatically configure everything for you because all PnP-ISA-IDE and PCI-IDE devices are self-identifying devices. The problem you're likely to encounter is there aren't many compliant add-in ATAPI controllers available. Most of them want to do revolting things like share ISA IRQs 14 or 15, or advertise the wrong range of I/O ports or don't specify the right PCI-IDE class bytes. In particular most SoundBlaster-IDE cards have a broken Alternate-Status register. The Solaris 7 ata driver assumes that the Alternate-Status register works as specified in the ATA-2 spec. Unlike the other non-compliant hardware problems, there's a trivial workaround for the SB-IDE hardware bug (i.e., don't use the Alt-Status register) but I've no idea whether anyone at Sun has spent the 15 minutes it would take to apply the fix to Solaris 8. If you've got an add-in ATAPI controller card that doesn't come with specs that clearly spell out that it won't conflict with your existing controllers, or if it requires you to disable any built-in controllers, then that's almost certainly one of those bogus controllers that isn't fully compliant with the ATAPI specs. I haven't yet found a legacy-ISA ATAPI card that works correctly (they all want seem to want to share IRQ 14 or 15), but people persist in telling me they exist. If you do find a compliant one then the Solaris 7 ata driver will work with it just fine. [Save yourself some trouble and use a SCSI controller and disks. - ed.] [Thanks to Bruce Adler] _________________________________________________________________ (4.13) Are Ultra DMA (UDMA) drives supported? I understand Solaris 7 recognizes UDMA drives in native mode. They are not supported in Solaris 2.6 or older, although they are recognized in its compatibility mode as regular ATAPI drives. During installation, you may want to disable UDMA mode if your install hangs during recognition of hard drives (which occurs shortly after the Solaris copyright line is displayed). [Thanks to Christopher Arnold and Steve] _________________________________________________________________ (4.14) Are Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices supported? Solaris 8 supports USB. However, not all devices attached to USB are supported. The HCL lists supported devices (see the answer about the HCL, above). _________________________________________________________________ (4.15) Is Microsoft Intellimouse or other scrolling mice supported? Partly (with native XSun). Configure it as a 3-button PS/2 mouse. The wheel won't scroll anything, but pressing the wheel down is the same as pressing the middle button. The same holds true for Logitech's MouseMan Wheel mice. Update: I understand the new version 1.2 of Intellimouse does not work with Solaris's XSun. However, XFree86 and Xi Graphics X Windows graphics card server software do support wheel mice [Thanks to Alan Orndorff]. _________________________________________________________________ (4.16) What's difference between Solaris x86 Server and Solaris x86 Desktop? There is absolutely no difference, other than what you are licensed to do with it. You get exactly the same software with the two products. (This is not the case with Sparc server, where the server product contains more CDs with some additional software. If you want something like Solstice AdminSuite, you have to order it separately. The Solaris desktop license restricts you from using the system as "any type of server" (other than print or NIS). or supporting more than two continuous users. Read your license for details. A Server Upgrade License is available. [Thanks to Andrew Gabriel] _________________________________________________________________ (4.17) Solaris doesn't recognize all of my large (>40GB) ATAPI. For example, a 60GB disk shows up as only 28GB. Apply patch 110202-01 from http://SunSolve.Sun.COM/ which fixes bug4353406 for Solaris 8. For Solaris 7, you can modify a patch by creating a directory called SOL_27 and duplicate the files and directories contained in SOL_28. [Thanks to EB] _________________________________________________________________ (4.18) Is Solaris Intel 64-bit aware? No. Due to the underlying Intel chip architecture, Solaris Intel is 32 bit. This also implies no support for filesystems with large (>2GB) files. I understand this will be supported for the upcoming Solaris for Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip. _________________________________________________________________ (4.19) What's the difference between partitions and slices? In the UNIX world, partitions and slices are often used interchangeably. In the x86 world, partitions usually refer to fdisk partitions. To avoid confusion, it's preferable to refer to "partitions" as "fdisk partitions" You can only have four primary fdisk partitions in a x86 fdisk table. Solaris doesn't support logical drives in an extended fdisk partition. In the Solaris x86 world, the term "slice" should be used to refer to slices which are within the Solaris fdisk partition (e.g., "root" (/) and "swap" slices.) [Thanks to John Groenveld] _________________________________________________________________ (5.0) INSTALLATION (5.1) How long does the install take? It depends on the CD-ROM and hard disk speed. On a 300 MHz Pentium with a multispeed SCSI CDROM, from the time "Initial Install" starts, it only takes about a half hour. Add another half hour for initial probes and configuration menus. Add a lot more if you have problems, of course. Upgrades take about 3 hours or more. This is because the system must determine what critical configuration data must be saved and replace it on a "per-package basis". I'm the impatient type and given up totally on system upgrades. Now I have a separate disk drive which I use for initial installs because it goes so much faster. With the typical SCSI drives costing in the $200 range it just isn't worth it anymore to do upgrades. But this is my opinion so take it for what it is worth. I just save the /etc, /opt, /local, and /export/home directories and selectively restore rather than upgrade. Below is typically what I save before doing an initial upgrade. Don't take this for the ultimate system definition of what you should save, but it works for my system. Your system may be designed very differently. The first thing I do is mount the filesystem that has a home directory with the below critical files and copy them to the appropriate directories. I'm sure it could be automated but. . . What the advantage of this process is that I can do an initial install in about an hour. My home directories are always on another disk partition. Install_Notes My own release notes crontab This is my crontab, just do a "crontab -e" and save the file defaultroute If you have one for routing to a DNS server. df Save the output to keep an idea of my disk usage dfstab /etc/dfs/dfstab for shared file systems inetinit I modify my inetinit; not a standard industry practice. kshrc_bob A typical .kshrc for a user kshrc_root A root .kshrc mail Make a copy of the current mail directory passwd /etc/passwd file profile_bob A typical ksh .profile. Note that home directories are mounted on a separate drive so this type of file doesn't get destroyed during an initial install. profile_root A profile for root. sendmail.cf The system sendmail.cf that works for your system. That is if you didn't modify it. shadow /etc/shadow file vfstab /etc/vfstab filesystems [Modified from Bob Palowoda's Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ] _________________________________________________________________ (5.2) My ATAPI CD-ROM isn't recognized during install by Solaris' FCS MCB and it's not in the HCL. What can I do? With at least older versions of Solaris (2.5.1 or before), you may have problems with ATAPI CD-ROMs either faster than 8x speed, connected to the secondary ATAPI, or connected to a sound card. I hear reports from multiple people, however, that this problem has gone away with Solaris 2.6. I understand the problem is related to the CMD640 ATAPI chipset. Consider disabling DMA for the CD-ROM. I find SCSI CD-ROMS are always a safe bet, as are CD-ROMS listed on the HCL. [Thanks to L. E. "MadHat" Heath and others] _________________________________________________________________ (5.3) What kind of problems might I encounter installing my SCSI system? Typical problems with SCSI drives are termination and SCSI IDs. You'll have flakey behavior if there's no termination resistor on the drive at the end of a SCSI "chain". Worse are double termination resistors. Some people mistakenly leave a resistor jumper on a drive when it's not at the end of a SCSI "chain." This also makes the system flakey. Carefully read your SCSI adapter manual on termination if you're unsure about it. A SCSI drive can run for hours with no problems--then boom, you get a panic. Always check cabling, pins, and connections and use the *shortest* cable possible. The first thing I do when I have a problem with a SCSI device is to reseat the SCSI cables (with the machine powered off). With SCSI IDs, a common problem is that the IDs on the drive, usually set with dip switches or a button, don't match the settings with your software (Solaris) or it's a duplicate ID. Check the IDs carefully when adding or upgrading SCSI devices. The boot drive must be ID 0. Other more obscure problems are setting the BIOS address space for the disk controller the same as the network card address space, and the PCI video card address conflicting with PCI SCSI disk controller BIOS address space. [From Bob Palowoda's Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ] _________________________________________________________________ (5.4) What do I do when the install hangs/panics? One of the most common problems with some mother boards is handling DMA during the install. Usually, that's the case if you get a hang right around configuring /dev/devices. Try turning off the caching--external and internal. Slow the system speed down if it allows you to do this in the BIOS or through the front panel switch. Leave these settings ONLY for the install: kick it back up after the install. [From Bob Palowoda's Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ] If you already have a OS installed on your hard drive (and that's most of you), the Webstart "Installation" disk will not work. Use the "Software 1 of 2" CD, which is also a bootable CD. Another common problem is support for new devices. Use the latest driver update boot and distribution diskettes, especially with newly-supported hardware. Carefully check the HCL to verify your cards are listed. Try removing/replacing suspected troublesome cards to isolate the problem. Sun gives these tips for handling hardware incompatibilities during installation (see http://access1.Sun.COM/cgi-bin/rinfo2html?115502.faq ): ". . . Disable external cache, . disable synchronous negotiation on the CD ROM, and disable ROM BIOS shadowing. These may be re-enabled after installation. Also, if using an un-supported or clone motherboard, slowing the system clock or changing from a double- clocked processor to a single-clocked one may help. Say, for example, a 486DX-50 as opposed to a 486-250 or 486-66." I would also add (temporary) disabling of these BIOS settings to this list: video cache, BIOS virus detection (boot block writes), "OS supports PnP", and UDMA mode. Disabling these settings may not be required for your hardware and BIOS, but it has helped for some hardware setups. Remember to reenable these after you installed Solaris. Here's a checklist of typical causes of hangs during installation: * Incompatible CD-ROM drives (or mounting on the secondary ATAPI). * Incompatible SCSI controller (avoid the clones and cheap cards). * Incompatible Motherboard (try changing motherboard settings). _________________________________________________________________ (5.5) I'm trying to install Solaris/x86 on my ATAPI drive. However, the installation program says the root partition must end within the first 1023 cylinders of the disk. What can I do? The root filesystem must be below 1024 cylinders of your disk The number of cylinders has nothing to do with the size of the disk. So it is possible to have 1.5GB partitions below 1024 cylinders on some disks (with more MB per cylinder) and not on others. Newer BIOSes support LBA, Logical Block Addressing. The BIOS may have to be edited on bootup to enable the LBA option. This bumps the HD limit to 8GB. With LBA, Solaris/x86 and other operating systems can be placed anywhere you want. For older BIOSes, the 1024 cylinder limit translates to the first 512 MB on ATAPI. Be sure that the root and the boot slice of the Solaris partition are within the 1024 cylinder boundary using the BIOS geometry reported for your disk and you should be fine. That is the cause of the "slice extends beyond end of disk" message -- exceeding 1024 cylinders. If you're having problems, simply make the root filesystem smaller and create an additional /usr filesystem (and, e. g., /var, /opt, . . .). For reliability, the root filesystem should be small (say 64 MB) with large filesystems mounted on it. I have seen problems with fdisk as well. In those cases I used a disk editor to adjust the partition so it started and ended on cylinder boundaries. This seems to happen when Solaris uses the actual geometry of a disk, as seen by Solaris at runtime, vs. the geometry reported by a controller to allow DOS to think it has no more than 1024 cylinders. Partition Magic reported problems with that partition when I tried it on systems with Solaris partitions that weren't aligned with the other partitions correctly. Update: Solaris 8 has removed this size restriction for ATAPI drives. One must reinstall Solaris, not upgrade, to take advantage of this. SCSI drives have never had the partition size restriction, although the boot code in the root / filesystem had to be under the 1024 cylinder limit. [Thanks to Ronald Kuehn and Mike Riley] _________________________________________________________________ (5.6) Does Solaris x86 prefer to have the motherboard BIOS set to NORMAL or LBA for ATAPI disks? In theory, both work. Leave it up to the BIOS' auto-detect, just as the Configuration Guide advises. [Thanks to Randy J. Parker] _________________________________________________________________ (5.7) Why does a Solaris install to a disk with valid, pre-existing fdisk partitions sometimes fail? There is a well known bug that sometimes prevents Solaris from installing into an existing partition. Its cause has never been identified, or its existence officially acknowledged by filling out a bug report. It is secretly well known only to Sun's Installation Support team in Chelmsford, MA., who claim that the workaround is apparent from the message "slice extends beyond end of disk". I agree that the workaround is simple, but I think some kind of document explaining the workaround should be returned by searches of sunsolve and access1. Better yet, the error message could actually describe the error! Or, how about identifying and fixing the bug so it never happens to begin with? For those of you too "stupid" :-) to read the error message, I'll decode it: slice = "disk" extends = "is full of fdisk partitions" beyond = "before" end = "installation." of = "Please" disk = "delete at least one of 'em, and try again" For example: If a disk has three partitions with the following: 1) FAT, 2) no filesystem yet, 3) NTFS, the installation might fail in some poorly understood cases, with the misleading error message. The workaround is to delete the unused partition, leaving a "hole" between the flanking partitions. The install fdisk, Partition Magic, or any other fdisk will now see only two partitions: FAT and NTFS. There will obviously be lots of cylinders between the end of the first, and the beginning of the second. The Solaris install will spot the hole, and create a partition according to its own mysterious specifications. Somehow, this new partition is acceptable, even though a seemingly identical one created by a different fdisk isn't. Perhaps the bug is in *when* it was created: if previous, sometimes balk. Perhaps NORMAL / LBA is relevant at this point - - it did make a difference in at least one case I tested. Oddly, I have also had cases where the offending procedure of creating the partitions before beginning to install Solaris worked fine. However, I once had a case where the Solaris install created a partition that left gaps of a few cylinders before and after. I am wary that it could err on the other side of the boundary, and damage a flanking filesystem by encroaching across the pre-existing boundary. The safest approach when dealing with a squirrelly fdisk is to use the dangerous one *first*. Install Solaris before the other partitions get used, if possible. Hopefully the other fdisk-type programs will recognize such corruption and allow the encroached-upon partitions to be deleted and re-created, without hurting the Solaris partition. At any rate, the most-likely-to-succeed procedure is to install into a hole, or onto an empty disk with no partitions. Thanks to Super-User (asianinter.net), who pointed out cases involving modern BIOS' auto-detecting ATAPI disks as NORMAL. Alan Thomas prefers always to set disks to NORMAL, and once had trouble with a disk that was set to LBA. [Thanks to Randy J. Parker] _________________________________________________________________ (5.8) How do I add a 8 GB or greater ATAPI drive to Solaris 7 or earlier? Solaris 8 has support for large ATAPI drives built-in. For SCSI drives, there's no such restriction. However, if you have Solaris 7 or earlier, there's an 8 GB restriction on large hard drives, even in LBA mode. There is a workaround for this limit however, by following these instructions: To add a drive for Solaris 7, you need a BIOS that supports drives greater than 8.4GB in LBA mode. Check with the computer manufacturer. BIOS upgrades may also be available if your system currently does not support large drives. You also need to find out the total number of sectors available on the drive. Solaris 7 or earlier cannot read the extended information on the drive, so the information will need to be obtained from the manufacturer. If the manufacturer only provides the total number of bytes, then divide that number by 512 to obtain the total number of sectors. NOTE: Ignore the 16383x16x63 (or whatever) listed on the drive -- this equates to an 8.4GB drive and is not applicable to large drives. To configure the drive: 1. Set the drive mode to LBA in the BIOS setup. 2. Boot Solaris. WARNING! Continuing will destroy any partitions that are on this drive. 3. Create a disk geometry file for Solaris. WARNING! EXCEEDING 16383 CYLINDERS WILL LOCK-UP YOUR DISK DRIVE. Our formula: x * y * z = s. Where x is the number of cylinders (x cannot exceed (2**14) - 1 = 16383), y is the number of heads, z is the number of sectors per track, and s is the total number of sectors available on the drive. By setting y = 1, we get the following: x * 1 * z = s, or x * z = s. By further setting x = 16383, we get: 16383 * z = s. Solve for z (number of sectors per track): z = s / 16383. For example: Western Digital AC 418000 (18.2GB) - Total sectors = 35,239,680. 35,239,680 / 16383 = 2150.99 = 2150 NOTE: All results must be rounded down. Solaris reserves three cylinders, so making x smaller would end up wasting space. Create a file called "geometry" like the following (using our example above) where NSECT is the value solved for z (2150): * Label geometry for device /dev/rdsk/c0d0p0 * PCYL NCYL ACYL BCYL NHEAD NSECT SECSIZ 16383 16383 2 0 1 2150 512 4. Run fdisk in Solaris using the new geometry file: fdisk -S geometry -I /dev/rdsk/c1d0p0 Replace "/dev/rdsk/c1d0p0" with your raw disk device (The trick is to let fdisk ignore the geometry reported by the BIOS and use the geometry specified in file "geometry" instead). 5. From here on, you can format, partition, and make filesystems on the drive in the usual manner. For details see the fdisk(1M), prtvtoc(1M), and fmthard(1M) man page. [Thanks to Pete Howell and Juergen Marenda] _________________________________________________________________ (5.9) How do I install or use the documentation CD? The AnswerBook documentation CD that comes with Solaris is is very useful. To use it with Solaris 7, you have to run the Answer Book 2 Server cd. To do this, run the ab2cd script on the CD as root. For example: cd /cdrom/sol_7_doc/; ./ab2cd Then open your browser and enter the URL http://localhost:8888/ [Thanks to Daniel Chirillo & Dave Uhring] _________________________________________________________________ (5.10) Help! I get a "No VTOC" error installing Solaris. "VTOC" is a disk volume table of contents. That is, it describes Solaris disk slices and, for Solaris Intel, resides at the start of the Solaris fdisk partition. The VTOC contains information on Solaris slices within the Solaris fdisk partition. If you get a message similar to one of these: "Can't open -- No VTOC" or "can't open - no hsfs VTOC" you've probably told the install program the wrong location of the installation CD. A common error during installation is answering this question wrong: "Select one of the identified devices to boot the Solaris kernel." What it's really asking is the location of the Solaris installation CD, not where you're planning on installing Solaris on the hard disk. Also, make sure to remove the CD before rebooting. For other installation hints, see http://www.execpc.com/~keithp/bdlogsol.htm [Thanks to Keith Parkansky] _________________________________________________________________ (6.0) POST-INSTALLATION (CUSTOMIZATION) (6.1) How do I add additional drives? First, you must have Solaris scan for the new drive. Become root and type: "touch /reconfigure; /usr/sbin/reboot" This rebuilds the /devices/ and /dev/ directories. ATAPI and SCSI the drives are already low-level formatted. If you wish to format a SCSI you can use /usr/sbin/format that comes with Solaris. A second drive install would use format. To create and use a filesystem: * Select the disk * /sbin/fdisk (select the whole disk or partial for format) * Write the label with the "label" option partition, check the partition arrangement * Create a filesystem with /usr/sbin/newfs on the drive. E.g. "newfs /dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s0" creates a filessystem on the the whole drive with SCSI ID 1. * Create your mount point directory, if it doesn't exist. For example, mkdir -p /local * mount the partition on your favorite mount point directory. For example, mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2 /local mounts slice 2 of disk 0 of SCSI ID 1 of SCSI controller 0 at /local. * Add a line to your /etc/vfstab file. See the vfstab man page for details. For example: /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2 /dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s2 /local ufs 1 yes - [Thanks to Bob Palowoda's FAQ and Sonny Leman] _________________________________________________________________ (6.2) How do I add or configure users, printers, serial ports, software, etc.? Use admintool from X Windows. For the "Keyboard Display or Mouse" use kdmconfig. _________________________________________________________________ (6.3) How do I suppress the banner page on my printer? To disable the banner pages permanently perform the following steps: 1. cd /usr/lib/lp/model 2. cp standard standard-nobanner 3. Use your favorite editor to edit file standard-nobanner. Around line 332, change this from: nobanner="no" to: nobanner="yes" 4. lpadmin -p PRINTERNAME -m standard-nobanner Note: unchecking the "Always print banner" box in admintool or running "lpadmin -p st -o nobanner" only allows users to submit print requests with no banners (lp -onobanner filenamehere), but doesn't suppress printing of banner pages by default. [Thanks to Youri N. Podchosov and Rob Montjoy's Sun Computer Admin. FAQ] _________________________________________________________________ (6.4) How do I set up an HP-compatible printer to print PostScript files? Solaris 8 has this ability with Print Manager, /usr/sadm/admin/bin/printmgr, or admintool (select "Browse-->printers"). For older versions of Solaris, install GhostScript, then use GhostScript (gs) to filter PostScript files for output to HP LaserJet-compatible (PCL) printers. Add a filter description file in the /etc/lp/fd directory to call GhostScript. This technique works for any GhostScript-supported printer. Note that higher-end HP printers (LJ IV) also support PostScript directly. For details, see Alexander Panasyuk's GhostScript Solaris Printer HOWTO at http://cfauvcs5.harvard.edu/SetGSprinter4Solaris.html Before you do any of this, try printing a plain text file (such as /etc/motd) to the printer. Michael Riley reminds us that EPP and ECP printer modes are unsupported. John Groenveld provides these instructions: Here's the procedure I followed. It assumes you've got a working ghostscript with a driver for your printer and that it's attached to /dev/lp1 (/dev/lp0 on some systems). The printer queue in the example is called "lj61_ps" I see a problem with Alexander Panasyuk's HOWTO: he writes directly to the device in his filter, which print filters should not do. # Test your driver: /opt/gnu/bin/gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=laserjet -sOutputFile=/dev/lp1 \ /opt/gnu/share/ghostscript/5.50/examples/alphabet.ps # Create the printer: lpadmin -p lj6l_ps -v /dev/lp1 -o nobanner # Create the printer filter definition: cat > /etc/lp/fd/laserjet.fd <Serial Ports." For earlier Solaris versions, or if the steps above don't work, perform the following, as root, to add the second serial port. For other serial ports and internal modems follow the same steps but change the appropriate line in the asy.conf file. This file is located at /kernel/drv/asy.conf (Solaris 8) or /platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/asy.conf (Solaris 2.6 and earlier). Solaris 2.6 and above: Edit file asy.conf with to read: #interrupt-priorities=12; # This line is present in Solaris 8 name="asy" class="sysbus" interrupts=12,4 reg=0x3f8,0,0 ioaddr=0x3f8; ignore-hardware-nodes=1; name="asy" class="sysbus" interrupts=12,3 reg=0x2f8,0,0 ioaddr=0x2f8; Solaris 2.5.1 and earlier: Remove the comment from the following line in file /platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/asy.conf: name="asy" class="sysbus" interrupts=12,3 reg=0x2f8,0,0 ioaddr=0x2f8; For all versions of Solaris: * Save the changed file, asy.conf * Type "touch /reconfigure" * Type "/usr/sbin/reboot" to restart the system. * After you get a message saying syncing file systems and no more [N] characters appear, turn your machine off and then turn it on again. * Verify the device is present with "ls -l /dev/ttyb" * For details and for COM3 and COM4 instructions, see http://access1.Sun.COM/cgi-bin/rinfo2html?228402.faq [Modified from Bruce Riddle's Solarisx86 2.5/Dialup PPP Configs FAQ; updates from Michael Wang] _________________________________________________________________ (6.10) How do I disable Solaris/x86 from probing the UPS on COM2? With the following command, ran as root: # eeprom com2-noprobe=true This (undocumented) option to the eeprom command disables boot-up time probing of COM2 (apparently done to detect modems). The eeprom command alters the Solaris boot sector. If the UPS is connected to a serial port during boot-up time, the UPS may go into self-test or shutdown or recalibrate. An alternate solution is to disconnect the serial cable during booting. With the obvious change, this also works for COM1. See also BugID 4038351. [Thanks to Andy I. McMullin and John D. Groenveld] _________________________________________________________________ (6.11) How do I set up Solaris/x86 to use PPP to connect to an ISP? "Life is too short for bad PPP software." --Celeste Stokely Setting up PPP with the system-default aspppd could be an exercise in torture. That's because it's based on the old BNU/UUCP communication software, which itself is infamously hard to set up. Of course, the hardware (modem and serial port) has to be set up correctly too. Make sure hardware flow control is enabled. The best documentation on it is Bruce Riddle's PPP Configuration for Solaris/x86 at http://www.riddleware.com/solx86/ppp-config.html Another good guide is at http://www.kempston.net/solaris/ Philip Brown has a script to automate asppp configuration at http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/configppp.sh For pointers to other references, see Stokely's "Serial Port Resources" at http://www.stokely.com/unix.serial.port.resources/ Also see Sun's "Expanding your Network with PPP" in the TCP/IP and Data Communications Administration, at docs.Sun.COM and "SunService Tip Sheet for SunPPP" (InfoDoc ID 11976). Here's some notes that may also help you out with Sun's aspppd: 1. Make sure you have the "Basic Networking" packages installed, otherwise pkgadd SUNWbnur and SUNWbnuu. 2. Insert IP addresses/host names into the /etc/hosts table. Your ISP needs to give you the names or you can look them up on the net. 3. Create /etc/resolv.conf, and add your domainname and nameserver lines. Your provider can provide the domainname (probably name-of-your-isp.com, unless they have a multi-location operation). The DNS nameservers goes on the nameserver lines, 1 per line. 4. Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf to use relay mailer ether, and relay host should be the smtp server. This hostname needs to be accurate. 5. Most news readers (like xvnews and Netscape) refer to the environment variable NNTPSERVER to find the NNTP server. Set that in your environment before invoking the reader. This can go in your .profile, .cshrc, or whatever, depending on what shell you use. 6. For the actual PPP connection, the only thing that counts is the machine you dial up to (most likely the gateway machine). You'll have to edit the /etc/uucp/{Systems, Dialers, Devices} with things like your preferred modem setup unless you like one of the defaults (one of my character flaws, I guess, I don't like any of them), dialing info for the gateway machine (note that our PPP is broken, and ignores the time-to-call field, disaster for a lot of us), and what serial port you have your modem connected to. Then edit the /etc/asppp.cf file to configure the ipdptp0 interface. Notes for the examples: I have my modem configured to power-on in the mode I like to use for my PPP configuration. DISABLE LOGINS ON THE MODEM PORT. I don't recall the nameserver IP address of my DNS server, so the example has a bogus address for /etc/resolv.conf. I also found that I had to put a delay at the end of the chat script in /etc/uucp/Systems (\d), or I couldn't get connected. Loopback problems and config error problems, caused by the remote system still being in echo mode on the line when my machine started sending the first PPP configure packets. Also, I have yet to find a 2.4 setup where ttymon grabs the line after PPP times out and disconnects (but before the modem has recognized a DTR-down condition (my speculation is that our streams stuff doesn't actually take DTR down)) causing the line to essentially be hung. This is avoided by not enabling ttymon on that port. In other words, in keeping with Sun's long tradition, truly bi-directional lines are a crapshoot on Suns. Examples for my home machine: /etc/hosts: 165.154.15.142 MyPCNameGoesHere 165.154.1.1 my-isp 127.0.0.1 localhost /etc/resolv.conf: domainname hookup.net nameserver 165.154.1.7 /etc/mail/sendmail.cf: # (Stuff not included here for brevity) . . . Dmether # (Stuff not included here for brevity) . . . DRmail.tor.hookup.net CRmail.tor.hookup.net # (Stuff not included here for brevity) . . . /etc/uucp/Dialers: wb144 =W-, "" \dAT\r\c OK\r \EATDT\T\r\c CONNECT /etc/uucp/Devices: ACUWB cua/0 - Any wb144 /etc/uucp/Systems (line split for readability; change the phone #): my-isp Any ACUWB 57600 555-2871 "" P_ZERO ogin: MyLoginNameGoesHere \ assword: MyPasswordGoesHere /etc/asppp.cf: ifconfig ipdptp0 plumb MyPCNameGoesHere my-isp netmask 0xffffff00 -trailers up path inactivity_timeout 900 interface ipdptp0 peer_system_name my-isp debug_level 8 default_route [Thanks to Dennis (from Bob's Solaris 2.4 x86 FAQ) and Wyatt Wong] _________________________________________________________________ (6.12) Is there any open source PPP that's easier to use than Sun's aspppd? Yes, PPPd. As you can see, aspppd, the Solaris-bundled ppp product, is difficult to setup and use ("infamous"). Part of the problem is it uses the old BNU/UUCP programs and configuration files, which are too general and weren't really intended for PPP. PPPd, which I use, has been ported to Solaris and is easier to configure, performs better, and is still free. It's available in binary and source from Peter Marelas at http://www.phase-one.com.au/solaris-x86/pppd/ PPPd 2.3.5 works for Solaris 2.6 - 8. More recent versions of PPPd are not required but are available (source only) from ftp://cs.anu.edu.au/pub/software/ppp/ Follow instructions in file README.sol2 to compile. I use PPPD with Solaris 7. PPPD 2.3.5 also works with 2.5.1 and 2.6. This product isn't designed for use with SMP machines. For Solaris 7, you can use the binaries compiled for Solaris 2.6 (not 2.5.1). If you compile on Solaris 7, you need to modify source file common/zlib.c to compile it. Change every definition of variable "u" to "u1". There's 5 occurrences at lines 4215, 4290, 4329, and 4337, and 4347. For example, change "inflate_huft *u[BMAX];" to "inflate_huft *u1[BMAX];". Besides PPPD, mentioned here, Andrew Gabriel mentions there's also DP (for Dialup PPP). DP documentation and source is available from http://www.acn.purdue.edu/dp/ I don't have any personal experience with this software. PPPD Configuration To configure, you set up a chat script to handle the ISP dialog and enter the phone number and other parameters in the pppd options file. Examples I use are below (files are in /etc/ppp unless otherwise mentioned). I removed files chap-secrets and pap-secrets, as I don't need them for my ISP. File connect-errors has error output, if any, from bad connections. File /etc/ppp/ip-down: #!/usr/bin/sh # Turn off IP forwarding /usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 0 File /etc/ppp/ip-up: #!/usr/bin/sh # Turn on IP forwarding /usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 1 File /etc/ppp/ppp-on: #!/usr/bin/sh # Set up a PPP link PEER=myisp LOCKDEV=ppp0 #PPPDOPTS=-d # uncomment for debugging if [ -f /etc/ppp/$LOCKDEV.pid ] ; then echo "PPP device $LOCKDEV is locked" exit 1 fi /usr/local/bin/pppd $PPPDOPTS call $PEER exit 0 File /etc/ppp/ppp-off: #!/usr/bin/sh # /etc/ppp/ppp-off # Shutdown a PPP link LOCKDEV=ppp0 # If the ppp pid file is present then the program is running. Stop it. if [ -r /etc/ppp/$LOCKDEV.pid ] ; then kill -INT `cat /etc/ppp/$LOCKDEV.pid` # If unsuccessful, ensure that the pid file is removed. if [ ! "$?" = "0" ] ; then echo "removing stale /etc/ppp/$LOCKDEV.pid file." rm -f /etc/ppp/$LOCKDEV.pid exit 1 fi # Success. Terminate with proper status. echo "ppp link $LOCKDEV terminated" exit 0 fi echo "ppp link $LOCKDEV is not active" exit 1 File etc/ppp/peers/myisp: cua1 # modem is connected to /dev/cua1 (cua0 may be a serial mouse) 115200 # bits per second (use 38400 or 57600 if this doesn't work) lock # Use a UUCP-style lock to ensure exclusive access crtscts # use hardware flow control noauth # don't require the ISP to authenticate itself modem # modem control line passive # wait for LCP packets connect '/usr/local/bin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/peers/chat-myisp' noipdefault # remote PPP server must supply your IP address. # Remove if the remote host doesn't send your IP during # IPCP negotiation and uncomment the next: #204.94.88.94: # our ip address:gateway address (both are optional) defaultroute # use the ISP as our default route File etc/ppp/peers/chat-myisp: ABORT "NO CARRIER" ABORT "NO DIALTONE" ABORT "ERROR" ABORT "NO ANSWER" ABORT "BUSY" ABORT "Username/Password Incorrect" "" "ATZ" OK "ATDT555-2871" CONNECT "" "ogin:" "^Updan" "ssword:" "\qaardvark" The last two files require the most modification. Make sure to remove read permission ("chmod go-r chat-*") from chat-myisp, as it has your login and password information. Messages go to /var/adm/messages. A good PPP session should look something like this: Oct 24 22:47:49 dan.cts.com pppd[1439]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/cua1 Oct 24 22:47:50 dan.cts.com pppd[1439]: local IP address 204.94.88.94 Oct 24 22:47:50 dan.cts.com pppd[1439]: remote IP address 205.163.84.83 Oct 24 23:08:52 dan.cts.com pppd[1439]: Connection terminated. Your "netstat -rn" output should have lines that look similar to this: Destination Gateway Flags Ref Use Interface -------------------- -------------------- ----- ----- ------ --------- 209.68.192.32 204.94.88.94 UH 1 1 ppp0 default 209.68.192.32 UG 1 1 Your "ifconfig ppp0" output should look similar to this: ppp0: flags=10008d1 mtu 1500 index 15 inet 204.94.88.94 --> 209.68.192.32 netmask ffffff00 For debugging pppd, I add the -d option to pppd (in ppp-on), add this line in /etc/syslog.conf, and restart syslogd (fields are tab-separated): daemon.* /var/adm/pppd.log Then, you get the chat script dialog captured to help isolate the problem. Print out and read the docs mentioned above if you have problems. Once the PPP link is working, you can enable DNS hostnames as follows: First, Modify this line in /etc/nsswitch.conf to something like: hosts: files dns Second, add lines similar to this in /etc/resolv.conf: domain PutYourISPDomainNameHere.com nameserver 192.188.72.18 nameserver 192.188.72.21 For more information, See "man pppd" and "man chat" and the FAQ and SETUP files provided with pppd. See also Dave's Solaris 7 x86 FAQ at http://www.zeta.org.au/~dsalton/solaris/top.html. A helpful step-by-step guide is the Linux PPP HOWTO at http://www.linuxdoc.org/ The configuration file information is the same for Solaris, except change tty references from /dev/ttyS0 - ttyS4 to /dev/cua0 - cua4 . _________________________________________________________________ (6.13) Is there any commercial PPP that's easier to use? Yes. Solaris sells its "Solstice PPP" product with its server system. It requires a license for the server side (usually an ISP), but not for the client-side. Previously, you had to have access to the Solaris server CDROM to obtain the software. Solstice PPP is now available for free download from the Solaris 8 Admin Pack, http://www.Sun.COM/software/solaris/easyaccess/sol8.html Basically, to set up, you use the GUI program pppinit to set up the PPP link. You start and stop PPP with "/etc/init.d/ppp start" (and stop), as with aspppd, or use the GUI program ppptool. Solstice PPP is documented in the Solstice PPP AnswerBook at http://docs.Sun.COM/ and a easier to set up than aspppd and pppd. Progressive Systems, Inc. sells Morning Star PPP, probably the most successful third-party PPP commercial product. It's available for Solaris/x86 (and several other systems) for a 15-day evaluation from http://www.progressive-systems.com/ _________________________________________________________________ (6.14) Help! My USRobotics Internal modem doesn't work with PPP. If it's a WinModem, you're out of luck--That only works with MS Windoze and then only with special drivers. It's missing critical UART hardware that's emulated in proprietary software and hardware interfaces. WinModems (which run only on Windows) are less expensive to manufacture because they don't include a controller. Instead, they include proprietary drivers for Windows that offload processing to the CPU. For some reason (tell me if you know?), Internal PCI card modems all seem to be WinModems. If you're using aspppd, supplied with stock Solaris, you can either switch to another PPP product that works with USRobotics Internal Sportster modems, such as Solaris PPP (not free) or PPPd (free, see above) or try this: (from Alan Orndorff's "Solaris x86 Resources," http://www.solarisresources.com/): Modify your /etc/uucp/Dialers file in the following manner: Add P_ZERO to your modem definition string to set it to "no parity." E.g, hayes =,-, "" P_ZERO "" \dA\pTE1V1X4Q0S2=255S12=255\r\c OK\r \EATDT\T\r\c CONNECT _________________________________________________________________ (6.15) PPP runs extremely slow. What's wrong? Solaris 2.5.1 patch 101945-34+ has poor TCP performance over slow links, including PPP. Patches for this, Bug ID 1233827, are available from http://SolDC.Sun.COM/: * Solaris/x86 2.5.1: 103631 (IP) and 103581 (TCP) * Solaris/x86 2.5: 103170 (IP) and 103448 (TCP) Both these patches are in the Recommended Patches set. The "showrev -p" command shows what patches you have installed. [From Bruce Riddle's Solarisx86 PPP FAQ and Casper Dik's Solaris 2 FAQ] _________________________________________________________________ (6.16) How do I configure PPP using Dynamic IP Addresses (DHCP)? If you're using Solaris aspppd, you need a void entry in /etc/hosts and plumb it to do DHCP with PPP. Basically add this line to /etc/hosts: 0.0.0.1 void (Note: for Solaris 2.4 use 0.0.0.0 in lieu of 0.0.0.1) Change the ifconfig line in /etc/asppp.cf to link to void rather than the local machine IP entry in /etc/hosts. Then add "negotiate_address on" to your /etc/asppp.cf file. If you're using the open source pppd, simply don't specify an IP address in your pppd options file. If you're using the commercial Solaris PPP, keep the default of "none" when prompted for your IP address by pppinit. Edit file /platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/asy.conf. To use DHCP, either: (1) Add a file /etc/dhcp.ppp0 (where ppp0 is the name of your TCP interface shown in ifconfig; usually le0 for Ethernet) with the following suggested line: wait 60 Or (2) Edit files /etc/hostname.ppp0 (where ppp0 is the interface name) and /etc/nodename to be both empty (0-length) files, then /usr/sbin/reboot. For more information, see http://docs.Sun.COM/ (search for "DHCP") and http://www.rite-group.com/consulting/solaris_dhcp.html [Thanks to Bruce Riddle, Wyatt Wong, and Ed Ravin] _________________________________________________________________ (6.17) How do I configure my SoundBlaster card? If you have a SoundBlaster 16 PCI or SoundBlaster PCI128 card, download and install Philip Brown's Solaris sbpci driver available at http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/sbpci/ If the above doesn't apply (which is the case for older ISA cards), try the following procedure for Solaris 2.6 and higher. Become root and type: "touch /reconfigure; /usr/sbin/reboot". If this works, you should see two links under /dev/sound and be able to play .au files with audiotool (2.5.1 instructions follow): 1. Run "prtconf -pv" to print the current system configuration: Node 0xf5a33500 compatible: 'pnpCTL,00E4,0' + 'sbpro' dma-channels: 00000001.00000005 interrupts: 00000005 model: 'Audio' name: 'pnpCTL,0045' pnp-csn: 00000001 reg: 8e8c00e4.19f815e8.00000000.00000001.00000220.00000010 .00000001.00000330.00000002.00000001.00000388.00000004 unit-address: 'pnpCTL,00E4,19f815e8' The device ID I want is CTL0045. This comes from the name line "pnpCTL,0045". There were a couple of other 'pnpXXX,DDDD' devices. This was the only one with the model "Audio". 2. According to InfoDoc 15830, I used "CTL,0045" from above and updated /platform/i86pc/boot/solaris/devicedb/master as follows (no comma): < CSC0000|PNPB002|PNPB003|CTL0031|ESS1681 sbpro oth all sbpro.bef "Sound Blaster" - --- > CTL0045|CSC0000|PNPB002|PNPB003|CTL0031|ESS1681 sbpro oth all sbpro.bef "Sound Blaster" 3. Rebooted and rebuilt my devices: # /touch /reconfigure; /usr/sbin/reboot 4. I also ran the Device Configuration Assistant (DCA) -- press Escape as soon as the machine boots, it will prompt you -- just to verify that the Sound Blaster showed up in the device list. It did as "Sound Blaster." Since I ran the DCA boot will get the -r arg anyways. 5. When I boot /dev/audio was present. Yeah! I am currently listening to the Sunday Blues on real audio at http://www.sunday-blues.com/listen.html. If the above procedure fails for Solaris 2.6 or 7 (as it did for me), continue with the procedure below for Solaris 2.5.1. For Solaris 2.5.1: Edit file /platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/sbpro.conf as instructed in the file (note that the instructions were removed for Solaris 2.6 and above!). Usually, it's just adding "dma-channels-1,5" to the appropriate name="sbpro" line. Then "/touch /reconfigure; /usr/sbin/reboot" For example, given a SoundBlaster 16 or AWE32, the following specifies IRQ 5, Audio I/O Address 0x220, and 8 & 16 bit DMA channels 1 & 5: name="sbpro" class="sysbus" interrupts=5,2 reg=-1,9,0,1,0x220,0x14 type="SB16" dma-channels=1,5; For a SoundBlaster PRO, the entry looks like this (one DMA channel: 1): name="sbpro" class="sysbus" interrupts=5,2 dma-channels=1 reg=-1,1,0,1,0x220,0x14 type="SBPRO"; Leave the other numbers alone. Make sure these resources are configured for the card and are not used by other devices. For example, NICs and Parallel Ports often use IRQ 5, and token ring cards often use IOA 0x220. If you get an invalid interrupt message, try using "interrupts=5" in lieu of "interrupts=5,2", where "5" is your IRQ. For more information, type "man sbpro." See also Dave's Solaris 7 x86 FAQ at http://www.zeta.org.au/~dsalton/solaris/top.html A commercial alternative to the above is to use 4Front Technologies' Open Sound System (OSS). It's available for a free trial for about 10 days. After that, it's $30, but well-worth the savings in time. For cards newer than SoundBlaster 16/32/Pro, it's the only choice. To use, download the tar.Z file from http://www.opensound.com/, extract, and run the install menu ./oss-install and let it auto-detect the sound card. Reboot (or at least sync), then run "soundon" to enable the driver manually (see file oss/Readme for how to enable automatically). [Thanks to Park Byoung-Gi, Steve Krapp, Chris, Dave, Norma, Juergen Keil, & Philip Brown] _________________________________________________________________ (6.18) How do I enable the audio output from my CDROM to my SBPRO card? Start audiocontrol then select "Record." Ha ha, "Record" really means "Sound Source ;-)." In the audiocontrol record window, select "Internal CD" (other choices are Microphone or Line in). You must have audiocontrol running before starting your favorite CD player application. I use workman, but you can try other open source players, such as xmcd. I haven't found a GUI CD player built-in with Solaris. Anyone? Robert Muir reports you can use this from the command line (non-X): audiorecord -p internal-cd /dev/null & [Thanks to Eugene Bobin and Robert Muir] _________________________________________________________________ (6.19) Is Solaris/x86 Year 2000 (Y2K) compliant? Solaris 8 is Y2K OK out-of-the-box (so far). Solaris 7, 2.6, 2.5.1, 2.5, and 2.4 can be made Y2K-safe by applying a set of Y2K patches. These patches are available at http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/ Note these patches are required even though the January 1, 2000 rollover date has passed (it will still be Y2K or later!). Solaris/x86 Y2K information is available at http://www.Sun.COM/y2000/ Of the Y2K patches, only the make and sccs patch are in the Recommended Patches set. For Solaris/x86 Y2K recommended patches, see http://access1.Sun.COM/patch.y2k/ For the entire Y2K patch cluster for each Solaris release, see http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patches/y2k-patche s This latter link may be restricted to registered or licensed users. I certainly didn't pay any money to access it though (other than the Solaris license). Y2K Patches exist for Solaris Intel 7, 2.6, 2.5.1, 2.5, and 2.4. Note that not all Y2K patches are in the "recommended" patch cluster for each release. The "showrev -p" command shows what patches you have installed. Anyone can download recommended patches. Non-recommended patches are not as serious and generally require registration to access and download. _________________________________________________________________ (6.20) Can I use Solaris/x86 to setup a "headless" server? The answer is yes, it can be done, but it's BIOS dependent, since many BIOS chips won't boot up the system without the keyboard and video card. The console can be configured to go to serial ports as described below. Removal of video card is also BIOS dependent. Setup steps: only) set the serial line's Data Set Ready (DSR) to HIGH. If you don't--it won't boot. This can be done with a NULL modem or with the following 25-pin or 9-pin pinouts: DTE A DTE B 25 (9) 25 (9) ------ ------ FG 1 (-) ------ 1 (-) FG TD* 2 (3) ------ 3 (2) RD RD 3 (2) ------ 2 (3) TD* CTS 5 (8) -+---- 20 (4) DTR* DSR 6 (6) -| +- 5 (8) CTS CD 8 (1) -+ |- 6 (6) DSR DTR* 20 (4) ----+- 8 (1) CD SG 7 (5) ------ 7 (5) SG RTS* 4 (7) (nc) 4 (7) RTS* RI 22 (9) (nc) 22 (9) RI * DTE (terminal/computer) driven (nc) = no connection If the NULL modem is "incomplete", the boot process hangs shortly after starting the asy driver (after the message "asy0 is /isa/asy@1,3f8" or similar asy1/2f8 message). For details, see http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/hw-io.html ttyb): eeprom input-device=ttya output-device=ttya (just like SPARC? ;-) Update: Andrew Schwabecher reports that using "ttya" doesn't work. Instead, he adds these entries to /platform/i86pc/boot/solaris/bootenv.rc: setprop output-device com1 setprop input-device com1 For 2.5.1, add "set console = 1" to /etc/system. Steve Rikli adds the following simpler 3-pin alternative, in lieu of the above: I've found that, while the full NULL modem pinouts work just fine, a simple 3-pin (TD/RD/SG) pinout scheme will also work in Solaris 8 by issuing eeprom commands thusly: eeprom output-device=ttya eeprom input-device=ttya eeprom ttya-ignore-cd=true The kicker is the "-ignore-cd" variable, which doesn't seem to be present by default on a Solaris x86 install, unlike Solaris for SPARC hardware. But setting it does work and it does persist across reboot/power-cycle. In the absence of "ttya-ignore-cd=true" one does indeed need a full NULL modem pinout. [Thanks to John Weekley, Scott Wedel, Kenneth Wagner, Andy Spitzer, Kai O'Yang, Michael Wang, David Page, Andrew Schwabecher, and Steve Rikli] _________________________________________________________________ .