Network Interface Card Help - solaris 9

[bcny33]

Hello,

This is what I'm working with... We have a Sun SparcServer 20 box and I'm running Solaris 9 on it.... I know our equipment is old but Its one of these old Government projects that aren't spending anymore money...
We have the Network card that is on the Board (le0) and we also added a 100mps card (hme0) to the server.... The cards work once the server is totally up and running after a reboot... Another words we can ping other servers throughout our network...
My Problem!! - I can't figure out why when I do a Reboot that the Network interface cards are not RECOGNIZE right away??? I get that message that there is a problem with le0 / hme0 - link down, check cable etc.... Not sure why it does this... Is it because I'm running Solaris 9 on such an old machine? We have other servers (sparc20) that run solaris 6 & 7 that recognize the network cards right away...?
When booting the solaris 9 box and when I look at the hub where the network cable is plugged into it displays the amber color and not green... Only until the server is completely up and at the login screen will it display Green. Any Help or comments would be appreciated!

Thanks

 

[KenCunningham]

I don't think it's a major issue - surely it's best to have the machine fully up before people can start logging on and breaking it ;-)

Check printenv from the OK prompt - maybe it's looking for something that isn't there (boot-net for example).

I want to be good, is that not enough?

 

[spamly]

Wow, I loved those pizza boxes! I've worked on hundreds of them across the world. It brings back good memories...

You may want to check to see how and when the negotiation is being handled on the NIC. Is it through /etc/system or via a startup script? I've seen this when the negotiation is being set during a run level 3 startup script.

Something else to note, a Solaris server should plumb (configure) its interfaces and assign an IP during run level 1. Routes do not get added at this time, so it is only "pingable" from a local broadcast network.