Peer-to-Peer network

[powahusr]

I would like to network my two home PC’s running the Solaris 2.7 operating system. I would like to create a simple peer-to-peer connection between them, and not interested in using NFS or NIS to do this. I have purchased a few UNIX networking books, but they focus on the larger scale NFS/NIS networks.

I’m looking for step-by-step instructions on how to do this without using NFS or NIS; Can somebody help me help out?

I’m all set with the hardware (NIC’s, Cat 5 cable, Hub) I’m just interested with the configuration part of it.

Thanks in advance

 

[t0shiba3]

I haven't tried to network two intel machines running solaris but i have networked a sparc to a linux box so should be the same.
Firstly you need to make sure that you have the i/p address and hostname of each machine in the /etc/hosts machine of each machine.
to get the network card up and running
#ifconfig -a this gives you the interface name, something like hme0 or le0
#ifconfig hme0 plumb
#ifconfig hme0 i/p address netmask
ie ifconfig hme0 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0
#ifconfig hme0 up
this will need to be done on both machines, substituting i/p address for each machine
now try and ping one of the i/p addresses
The major issue will be if your network cards are supported by solaris. See their web page for list of supported cards.
Paul ps post if this works

 

[t0shiba3]

slight mistake To get interface name its #more /etc/path_to_inst

 

[powahusr]

I went through the steps that you suggested to configure my systems to the network, and could not ping either system on the network. Bellow I've included as much information as I thought would be useful in troublseshooting the problem.

Systems on the peer-to-peer network:

Name IP Address
Mickey 192.168.0.1
Pluto 192.168.0.2

Netmask of 255.255.255.0
Interface names: lo0

From Pluto, I pinged Mickey and recieved the following message:
ICMP Net Unreachable from Gateway localhost (127.0.0.1) for icmp from localhost (127.0.0.1) to Mickey (192.168.0.1)

I also did a ping from Mickey to Pluto and got the same results.

I verified that the cabling is secured to both NIC's and hub, and that the green lights are displaying on the NIC's and the ports to which the CAT5 cables are connected to.

Any suggestions?

 

[sureshp]

Hi Powa,
If you are connecting the two machines through a hub,then check you IP address of both the machines through
"ifconfig -a " command.Check your IP's and subnet mask. If your data(IP and subnet mask) is correct check your physical connection.
If you have connected both the machines directly thru a cable,the cable must be a null modem cable.A null modem cable is a ordinary cable, in which two inner cables are swapped so that two machines can communicate directly without a need of router or Hub.

Hope this helps...

Suresh.

 

[powahusr]

Hello Suresh,

1) During the installation of Solaris 2.7, each NIC was discovered during the setup phase of installation.

2) Both green lights are being displayed on each NIC.

3) The instance I run the following command\arguments:
"ifconfig lo0 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0"
I receive the error message:
SIOCSIDSTADDR: IFF_POINOPOINT not set

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

 

[sureshp]

Hi,
If yor are using the ifconfig command for verification , you have to use the command as

#ifconfig -a

If you want to set the IP address and subnet mask using the ifconfig commnad , then go thru the manual pages of ifconfig.

Suresh.

 

[powahusr]

True, I just figured out that I must use "ifconfig -a" everytime If im going to run the other "ifconfig" commands.

I run the "ifconfig" commands in the same order as listed bellow:

ifconfig -a
ifconfig lo0 plumb
ifconfig lo0 <ip_address> <netmask>
ifconfig lo0 up

I am able to ping the local host(s) successfully, it appears that the 2 hosts just cant talk on the network

When I ping the other host, I get the following error:

ICMP Net Unreachable from Gateway localhost (127.0.0.1) for icmp from localhost (127.0.0.1) to Mickey (192.168.0.1)

I ran a &quot;netstat -n -r&quot; to look at the routing tables and they looked normal. As I said earlier, the hardware seems to be functioning properly.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[t0shiba3]

Try bringing the cards down and up again. To bring down you have to unplumb them. #ifconfig hme0 unplumb
Are you going through a gateway? if so need to add the i/p address of the gateway to /etc/defaultrouter
Have a look at

http://www.sunhelpdesk.com/pages/How_To_Documents/General_Networking/

for a good overview of networking issues.

Paul

 

[t0shiba3]

I have just looked again at your posting and have seen that you are trying to plumb your loopback interface lo0 not your ethernet interface. It will be either hme0 or le0. Check again and follow through the steps you have already done. They should come up

 

[powahusr]

There is no gateway, just the 2 pc's unless one of them has to be set up as a gateway? Also, when I ran &quot;ifconfig -a&quot; the only interface name that appeared was lo0. hme0 or le0 was not present, I did a grep on a number of different files that may contain interface names to look for the words hme0 and le0 and got no results. Im pretty sure that the system can see the NIC because I can retrieve the MAC address, maybe its a problem on a different layer of the OSI model? Does any particular reason come to mind, when hme0 or le0 isnt present, and you can still get a MAC address? Sounds like we are getting closer!!

Thanks in advance!!

 

[t0shiba3]

Have you looked in /etc/path_to_inst this is where it will be listed if it is recognised even if it hasn't been plumbed yet

Paul

 

[powahusr]

Paul,

I re-installed the OS and started from scratch and re-examined everything...

I looked at the information provided by &quot;ifconfig -a&quot; and &quot;/etc/path_to_inst&quot; and discovered that the name assigned to the device is &quot;elxl&quot;. Kinda strange since device names are usually, le0, qfe0, hme0, or qe0. Is my device name a valid one? My NIC is an Etherlink XL PCI 36900B - TPO. I will give it a try anyway.

BTW, Thanks for pointing me to the article on &quot;Configuring NIC's&quot; It gave me the knowledge that I was looking for!

 

[powahusr]

Ok, I went ahead and configured the NIC and received slightly different results.

After configuring the NIC through the usual &quot;ifconfig&quot; commands, I received the following message:
&quot;Notice: elx10: 10 mbps link at half-duplex.&quot;
So it Looks like both cards are working.

I then tried to ping the other hosts and got the following message:
ICMP Net Unreachable from Gateway localhost (127.0.0.1) for icmp from localhost (127.0.0.1) to Mickey (192.168.1.1)

I tried looking for /etc/defaultrouter but could not locate it. The file hostname.elxl0 also wasn't present on either system, but the cards still appeared to be up.

Any suggestions?

P.S
Thanks for enduring this dilema!!!

 

[t0shiba3]

Looked at the sun site to see what cards are supported for intel edition. A number of Etherlink Xl cards are listed but not your number although it seems to be picking it up. However the Etherlink cards require aditional configuration which is outlined in the device reference page in intel platform edition device configuration guide. This can be viewed if you don't have it at

http://www.sun.docs.com.

Have you tried 3com itself to see if they can help? its worth a try or phone them up, put them on spot.
As for /etc/defaultrouter this is not an issue as you will not be going through a gateway if only connecting two pc's together at home, when i originally said about it i hadn't realised that this was the setup. Just for your info though you just create it and put in the i/p address of the gateway-thats it simple
best of luck, alternatively win lottery and go and get a couple of sun boxes!!!!!!!!! all best
paul

 

[powahusr]

Could it be that I need to add a patch??? I haven't added any patches as of yet. If so, where is a good place to start looking (particular patch)?