Sun Configuration (Solaris 2.5.1)

26 September 1996

Initial Configuration of Sun (Solaris 2.5.1)
The first time you boot your Sun, it will ask you some important questions about configuration, like the machine name, IP address, root password, etc. Then our genius networking boys at Sun miss a few key questions. There is no where to tell it that you are using DNS and what your primary name server is, hence you will have to edit the /etc/nsswitch and /etc/resolv.conf files yourself. They also fail to ask for your router. You can set this in the /etc/defaultrouter file or as mentioned below.
If you want a machine that is really plug and play - buy an SGI.
To redo this little setup program, try sys-unconfig, then reboot the system.
Routing
Your routing table should look something like this.
```
>netstat -nr

Routing Table:
  Destination           Gateway           Flags  Ref   Use   Interface
-------------------- -------------------- ----- ----- ------ ---------
127.0.0.1            127.0.0.1            UH       0      0  lo0
207.90.132.0         207.90.132.175       U        3      4  hme0
224.0.0.0            207.90.132.175       U        3      0  hme0
default              207.90.132.254       UG       0      2  
```
If your routing table doesn't resemble this, you can delete an item like this.
```
>route delete default 207.90.132.254
```
on Solaris 2.6 it seems you have to specify the gateway to delete a regular entry from the routing table. I'm not sure if this was true under 2.5.1 but any way, here is how you delete a regular routing table entry
```
>route delete xxx.yyy.zzz.nnn gateway
```
or add one like this
```
>route add default 207.90.132.254 1
```
the 254 number here is the default because it is the router. On some Sun's the hme0 is le0. You can set the default router in a file called /etc/defaultrouter It should contain nothing but the IP address of the router. In this case 207.90.132.254

Name Resolution - DNS

The /etc/resolv.conf file should look like this

#
# /etc/resolv.conf
#

domain expocity.com

nameserver 207.90.132.170
nameserver 192.231.42.1
nameserver 192.231.42.2

First put your domain name, then just list out the nameservers. These domain servers are our primary DNS machine, and two machines at geo.net which are our secondary and tertiary (nice word, eh?) DNS servers.

A very obscure thing, if your name server is a DNS name server (some may be NIS?) is to make sure you have /etc/nsswitch.conf looking something like this.

#
# /etc/nsswitch.files:
#
# An example file that could be copied over to /etc/nsswitch.conf; it
# does not use any naming service.
#
# "hosts:" and "services:" in this file are used only if the
# /etc/netconfig file has a "-" for nametoaddr_libs of "inet" transports.

passwd:     files
group:      files
hosts:      files dns
networks:   files dns
protocols:  files
rpc:        files
ethers:     files dns
netmasks:   files
bootparams: files
publickey:  files
# At present there isn't a 'files' backend for netgroup;  the system will 
#   figure it out pretty quickly, and won't use netgroups at all.
netgroup:   files
automount:  files
aliases:    files
services:   files dns
sendmailvars:   files

Note the key dns appearing at the end of a few of those lines.

Testing and Debugging
Your big testing tools are nstest and nslookup
- nstest
  The basic way to run nstest is just say ...
```
>nstest
> apple.com
```
  It returns something like this
```
res_mkquery(0, pple.com, 1, 1)
res_send()
HEADER:
        opcode = QUERY, id = 1, rcode = NOERROR
        header flags:  rd
        qdcount = 1, ancount = 0, nscount = 0, arcount = 0

QUESTIONS:
        pple.com, type = A, class = IN

Querying server (# 1) address = 127.0.0.1
timeout
Querying server (# 2) address = 207.90.132.2
got answer:
HEADER:
        opcode = QUERY, id = 1, rcode = NXDOMAIN
        header flags:  qr aa rd ra
        qdcount = 1, ancount = 0, nscount = 1, arcount = 0

QUESTIONS:
        pple.com, type = A, class = IN

NAME SERVERS:
        com
        type = SOA, class = IN, ttl = 1 day, dlen = 62
        origin = A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET
        mail addr = hostmaster.INTERNIC.NET
        serial = 1996092600
        refresh = 3 hours
        retry = 15 mins
        expire = 7 days
        min = 1 day
```
  which says that it asked the localhost (itself or 127.0.0.1) if it knew apple.com (it might know it if it is in the /etc/hosts file. Since my machine didn't know, it asked my primary name server.
  This is confusing because it thinks my primary name server is 207.90.132.2 but that number appears nowhere that I know of in my config files. I specifically put three other IP numbers to be my DNS servers in the /etc/resolv.conf file. So where does it get this?
  Anyway, it found it apple.com by asking this server.
  I don't really trust nstest because I don't know how it determines the default "name server" to use for this test. Also, I've passed the "nstest" without really being able to resolve names. In other words, I've said "ping apple.com" and I got the error "unknown host apple.com" Then I did an nstest on apple.com and it found the apple's IP number. So nstest sucks.
- nslookup
  I trust nslookup a little more. You say
```
>nslookup
>server xyz.com
>apple.com
```
  Which means you run it, then you give the name of the "name server" that you want to use as the primary DNS (for this test only). In this case I said xyz.com. Then you ask it the name of the domain you want it to look up.
  In this case it returns.
```
Server:  xyz.com
Address:  207.90.132.170

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    apple.com
Address:  130.43.2.2
```
  The "non-authoritative" answer means that it had it cached, and it could have changed in the last few minutes. (But I doubt it has)
  I've had bad luck trying out a different name server in one nslookup session. I usually run it, get a couple names, and quit. Then I restart if I need more.
- traceroute - how do you do this on a Sun?
  On a Linux machine, you can do traceroute which traces a route from your machine to any other machine. I don't know how to do this on a Sun. Don't you love it when all these fucking UNIX companies can agree on standards? But won't they be surprised when everyone buys Windows NT from Microshit and runs it on their DEC Alpha. Anyway, on a Linux box, you say
```
> traceroute apple.com
```
  And you get back something like this ...
```
traceroute to apple.com (130.43.2.2), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  20790132254.clickover.com (207.90.132.254)  2.152 ms  2.119 ms  2.141 ms
 2  166.90.112.97 (166.90.112.97)  9.039 ms  6.235 ms  6.055 ms
 3  SanFrancisco-rt1-f0.geo.net (166.90.2.14)  7.76 ms  6.516 ms  6.146 ms
 4  pb.mci.net (198.32.128.12)  9.67 ms  8.559 ms  8.221 ms
 5  core3-hssi3-0.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.201)  8.857 ms  10.082 ms  8.603 ms
 6  borderx1-fddi-1.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.158.52)  11.28 ms  10.129 ms  10.552 ms
 7  borderx1-fddi-1.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.158.52)  10.111 ms  9.617 ms  9.106 ms
 8  barrnet.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.158.102)  12.349 ms  11.587 ms  11.676 ms
 9  paloalto-cr4.bbnplanet.net (131.119.0.204)  11.613 ms  11.217 ms  11.754 ms
10  appl.bbnplanet.net (131.119.26.30)  12.817 ms  13.872 ms  13.205 ms
11  tre.apple.com (205.180.175.29)  14.073 ms  19.064 ms  17.256 ms
12  tachyon.apple.com (130.43.9.9)  12.74 ms  14.724 ms  14.144 ms
13  old.apple.com (130.43.2.2)  14.347 ms  16.301 ms  14.538 ms
```
  You gotta love how it bounces all over. Sometimes I go through machines in LA to get across town. If you get little stars (*) appearing it means it is having trouble. 3-4 stars aren't too bad, 6-9 stars and web surfing gets pretty annoying. Sometimes you get in a loop where you hit the same machines a few times. This is not your problem (nor are the *'s ) unless it is your machine that is looping or generating the *'s. Call your ISP if you need help.

Mounting a CD-ROM from a remote Machine

Yes, you too can do something as exotic as this. On the machine with the CD-ROM, make sure you have /etc/dfs/dfstab looking like this.

#       place share(1M) commands here for automatic execution
#       on entering init state 3.
#
#       share [-F fstype] [ -o options] [-d ""]  [resource]
#       .e.g,
#       share  -F nfs  -o rw=engineering  -d "home dirs"  /export/home2
share -F nfs -o ro /cdrom/cdrom0

Then, to mount it on the remote machine try this.

mount -F nfs hostname:/cdrom/cdrom0 /cdrom

Allowing ftp access on a Sun
Here is one that confounded me for years. Most things on a Sun are set up to let users with valid accounts use ftp to move files on and off the machine. There is about a four step check which is documented and these are simple things like making sure the user has a password, has a valid home directory, has a shell which exists on the machine, etc.
However, if the user is using the T-Shell or tcsh, you have to make sure that this is one of the listed shells in /etc/shells or ftp will not work for that user. Many other shells are accepted by default, like the Korn Shell, which many people love, but is not nearly as good as T-Shell. (Is this an emacs versus vi debate, or what?) But other shells which aren't accepted by default must be listed in /etc/shells This part is rather poorly documented.
Once again the geniuses at Sun have ignored what most users like. Who in the hell does NOT use tcsh? Why can't Sun ship with tcsh, and why can't they at least list it in the set of "acceptable" shells?
Anyway, the /etc/shells file should look like this.
```
/bin/tcsh
```

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Sun Configuration (Solaris 2.5.1)

Initial Configuration of Sun (Solaris 2.5.1)

Routing

Name Resolution - DNS

Testing and Debugging

nstest

nslookup

traceroute - how do you do this on a Sun?

Mounting a CD-ROM from a remote Machine

Allowing ftp access on a Sun