Two ethernet cards 1

[tech84]

Hi,

I have an Ultra Enterprise 2 workstation, and I just bought a second ethernet card for it. It's installed and the self-test checks on both cards from the OBP.

I am running Solaris 8.0, and I'm unsure of the patch level, as I'm a newbie. When I run uname -a, I get Generic_108528-17 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2. Does this mean patch level 17? The hardware release is 6/00. Is that where the 108528 comes from, because on the sunsolve.sun.com site when I click on the "--Select SunOS and Patch Number--", the lowest SunOS 5.8 is 108987. I guess, basically, I'm wondering what the 108528 means and what the -17 means.

Sorry to go off on a tangent. Back to the ethernet problem.

Now for the fun part: I'd like to have one card boot via DHCP from my ISP, and the other card use static settings for my private network.

All I've done so far is to run sys-unconfig and set hme0 as the primary interface using DHCP. I've created the /etc/hostname.hme1 file, and edited the /etc/hosts file with the hostname I used in the hostname.hme1 file.

My hostname.hme1 file now contains the text:

<hostname> 192.168.10.20 255.255.255.0 up

My hosts file contains:

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.10.20 <hostname> loghost
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx <DCHP-assigned adx> #added by DHCP

The hostname is the same in both files. I moved loghost from the loopback line to the second line. That shouldn't have any adverse affects, should it?

So at this point, when I boot up and run ifconfig -a, I see both interfaces, hme0 and hme1, and hme0 is using DHCP. But hme1 is down and has 0.0.0.0 for IP address and 0 for netmask. I run ifconfig hme1 up, and it comes up with IP address 0.0.0.0 and the netmask and broadcast adx set by the DHCP server. I added the /etc/notrouter file just for good measure. I thought maybe the fact that the machine is a router by default might be causing the secondary interface to be getting its settings from the DHCP server (netmask and broadcast adx anyway).

Is there some way I can set up hme1 with my own static settings, and to be up when the system comes up? I can use ifconfig to change all the settings to my liking, but they go back to the above after a reboot. Is there another file(s) I need to edit/add somewhere?

Thanks for your help!
Mike

 

[Annihilannic]

Usually you only need the hostname in the hostname.<interface> files. The netmask for your 192.168.10.0 network should be in /etc/netmasks. Annihilannic.

 

[Annihilannic]

I forgot to answer the other question. 108528 just happens to be the patch ID Sun have assigned to the Kernel Jumbo Patch for Solaris 8. You are correct, -17 is the patch level.

I'm not sure where you're seeing that the lowest patch available is 108987 on SunSolve though? Annihilannic.

 

[tech84]

Thanks, Annihilannic, for your response.

Originally, I had my files set up as you suggest, but I changed them around trying to figure this thing out. I now have them set back to your suggested way, so we can start from scratch.

My /etc/hostname.hme1 file simply has the hostname in it: master

My /etc/hosts file contains this:
127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.10.20 master loghost
12.xxx.xxx.104 x1-6-08-00-20-xx-xx-xx # Added by DHCP


My /etc/netmasks file contains this:
192.168.10.20 255.255.255.0

When I boot up, I get this:
# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=1000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 8232 index 1 inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
hme0: flags=1004843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DHCP,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 2 inet 12.xxx.xxx.104 netmask fffffc00 broadcast 12.xxx.xxx.255 ether 8:0:20:xx:xx:x
hme1: flags=1000842<BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 3 inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0 ether 8:0:20:xx:xx:x

So I run ifconfig hme1 up, and I get this:
hme1: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 3 inet 0.0.0.0 netmask ff000000 ether 8:0:20:xx:xx:x

As you can see, all that does is bring up hme1, but does not assign the IP adx I set up. I thought it was assigning the netmask from the DHCP server, but I can see now that I was mistaken about that.

I know that the MAC (ethernet) address on the main board is used for both interfaces. Do I need to somehow set up a different MAC adx for the second interface? There's not one burned into the card that I can somehow pick up? Sorry so many questions!

As for the patch thing... that's just ignorance on my part. The drop-down list I was referring to is simply a list of the latest patches for the SunOS 5.8. Ha!

Thanks again for your help! Mike

 

[Annihilannic]

The first column in /etc/netmasks should be a network, not a specific IP. Try changing it to 192.168.10.0. Annihilannic.

 

[tech84]

Thanks! I feel like a real dodo for not catching that myself.

I'll give it a try today. Mike

 

[tech84]

I changed the network adx in the /etc/netmasks file to 192.168.10.0, but I still get the same result. Could it be the mac adx thing? Is it normal for all of the physical network interfaces to have the same mac adx in UNIX?

Thanks Mike

 

[Annihilannic]

One of our systems has six interfaces with the same MAC so I don't think it should be a problem... but try assigning a different one anyway using ifconfig hme1 ether 8:0:20:xx:xx:xy (perhaps incrementing the existing one by one). I'm not sure this has permanent effect though.

Failing that, try putting a set -x in /etc/init.d/network, watch your boot messages carefully and see if you can see what it's doing wrong? Annihilannic.

 

[tech84]

Annihilannic,

I did as you suggested (set-x), and I couldn't see anything amiss. But, what it did do was to get me looking at this /etc/init.d/network script. So this is what I did:

I changed the /etc/dhcp.hme0 file to /etc/dhcp.hme1. Then I moved the hostname from the /etc/hostname.hme1 file to /etc/hostname.hme0. Then I rebooted.

It worked! Now hme0 has the static adx, and hme1 is served by DHCP. I figured if I had the second interface set up to use DHCP, maybe it would leave the first (primary) interface alone. A long shot, I know, but it worked anyway.

Now... one more question: hme0 is set up properly when the system comes up, but it's not up. Is there an easy fix for me to get that thing to be up when the system boots?

Thanks so much for your help! This was driving me crazy! (A short trip, for sure!) Mike

 

[Annihilannic]

Sorry, I can't think of anything else to check except watching that script debugging output very carefully and trying to figure out why it doesn't 'up' the interface.

It doesn't help that I've never touched DHCP. Annihilannic.

 

[tech84]

Annihilannic,

I finally got this machine to boot up perfectly! As you see above, I changed the files manually before to set up hme1 as the DHCP interface. It worked well, but hme0 would not be up at boot. So I ran sys-unconfig, and set hme1 as the primary interface using DCHP. Then I plumbed hme0, and created the /etc/hostname.hme0 file with hostname &quot;master.&quot; Now, the system boots up with hme0 using my home subnet address, and hme1 using my ISP's DHCP server. And both interfaces are up!

Thanks a bunch for all your help! Mike

 

[tech84]

Oh yeah... I had to edit the /etc/hosts file as well, to include the subnet info for hme0. Mike