How to configure an IP address in Solaris 11

Oracle made a huge changes in the networking stack with Solaris 11. The use of many
network related files have been deprecated in Solaris 11. Below are some of the files
which are not used in Solaris 11 for persistent network configuration :

/etc/defaultdomain
/etc/dhcp.*
/etc/hostname.*
/etc/hostname.ip*.tun*
/etc/nodename
/etc/nsswitch.conf

Network Configuration Profile

Solaris 11 uses profile-based network configuration. It has 2 configuration modes :
1. Automatic – Uses DHCP to obtain network configuration (IP address, router and
DNS) from any of the connected ethernet interfaces. Do not support hot swapping of
interfaces and IPMP.
2. Manual (DefaultFixed NCP) – interfaces needs to be manually configured using
dladm and ipadm commands. Also called as DefaultFixed NCP. Supports hot
swapping of interfaces and IPMP.

Configuring the IP address

Step 1 : Set the NCP
We would set the NCP to DefaultFixed profile in order to configure the IP address
manually.
To check the current NCP setting:

# netadm list
TYPE PROFILE STATE
ncp Automatic disabled
ncp DefaultFixed online
loc Automatic offline
loc NoNet offline
loc DefaultFixed online

As seen in the output above, the NCP is set to DefaultFixed. In case it is not set, use
netadm command to set it to DefaultFixed :

# netadm enable -p ncp DefaultFixed

Step 2 : Check the link status
The command “dladm show-dev” does not work in Solaris 11. The command to check
the link status in Solaris 11 is :

# dladm show-phys
LINK MEDIA STATE SPEED DUPLEX DEVICE
net0 Ethernet up 1000 full e1000g0

Now if you see, there is a device alias name net0 for e1000g0. Starting Solaris 11, all
the network ports would be identified by an alias in a generic format of net#.

Step 3 : Create a new interface

The ipadm command creates the new interface to be configured :

# ipadm create-ip net0

Check the newly created interface :

# ipadm show-if
IFNAME CLASS STATE ACTIVE OVER
lo0 loopback ok yes ---
net0 ip down no ---

Step 4 : Creating IP address

# ipadm create-addr –T static –a local=192.168.1.10/24 net0/geeklab

-T specifies either static, dhcp or addrconf (for IPv6) types of addresses.
The string geeklab can be any random string used to identify the interface.

To check the interface status of the interface :

# ipadm show-if
IFNAME CLASS STATE ACTIVE OVER
lo0 loopback ok yes --
net0 ip ok yes --

To check the configured IP address :

# ipadm show-addr
ADDROBJ TYPE STATE ADDR
lo0/v4 static ok 127.0.0.1/8
net0/geeklab static ok 192.168.1.20/24
lo0/v6 static ok ::1/128

Unplumb/delete the interface

In Solaris 11, If we want to unplumb the interface, we have to delete it. Also, even in
case you want to change the IP address of the interface, you have to delete it first and
then re-create it to assign the IP address it.

# ipadm delete-ip net0