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Oracle Solaris SAN Configuration and Multipathing Guide
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Document Information


1.  Product Overview

2.  Fibre Channel Configuration Overview

3.  Administering Multipathing Devices Through mpathadm Commands

4.  Configuring Multipathing Software

5.  Configuring SAN Devices

6.  Configuring SAS Domains

7.  Configuring IPFC SAN Devices

IPFC Considerations

Determining Fibre Channel Adapter Port Instances

To Determine Port Instances

To Plumb an IPFC Instance

Invoking and Configuring IPFC

To Start a Network Interface Manually

To Configure the Host for Automatic Plumbing Upon Reboot

8.  Solaris 10 10/08 x86/x64 Fibre Channel Operating System Booting Procedure

9.  Persistent Binding for Tape Devices

A.  Manual Configuration for Fabric-Connected Devices

B.  Supported FC-HBA API

C.  Multipathing Troubleshooting


Invoking and Configuring IPFC

Immediately upon installation, start IPFC manually with the ifconfig command. You can configure the host so that on subsequent reboot, the IPFC network interface starts automatically. This section describes the procedures to start a network interface manually and to configure the host for automatic plumbing upon reboot.

To Start a Network Interface Manually

Use this procedure when you want to plumb IPFC with specific netmask values and get the IPFC interface up and running.

  1. Use the ifconfig command with the appropriate interface.

    Ask your network administrator for an appropriate IP address and netmask information. For example, to enable an IPFC interface associated with fp instance 0 and an IP address of, type:

    # touch /etc/notrouter
    # ifconfig fcip0 inet netmask up

    The ifconfig command is described in more detail in the ifconfig(1M) man page.

  2. Use the command ifconfig -a to verify that the network is functioning.

    The output of ifconfig -a should look like this:

    inet netmask ff000000
    fcip0: flags=1001843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,MULTI_BCAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 2
    inet netmask ffffff00 broadcast ether 0:e0:8b:1:3c:f7
    hme0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 3
    inet netmask ffffff00 broadcast
    ether 8:0:20:fc:e9:49

To Configure the Host for Automatic Plumbing Upon Reboot

Each network interface must have an /etc/hostname.interface file defining the name of the IP address associated with it. For example, IPFC network interface fcip0 has a file named /etc/hostname.fcip0.

  1. Manually create a /etc/hostname.interface file that contains a single line that identifies the host name or interface IP address.
  2. Make any additional entries to the /etc/inet/hosts file.

    The Solaris 10 OS installation program creates the /etc/inet/hosts file with minimum entries. You must manually make additional entries with a text editor. See the hosts(4) man page for additional information.

    The /etc/inet/hosts file contains the hosts database. This file contains the host names and the primary network interface IP addresses, as well as the IP addresses of other network interfaces attached to the system and of any other network interfaces that the machine must know about.

    The following example shows an etc/inet/host file.      localhost     loghost   sun1     #This is the local host name fcip0 #Interface to network
  3. Edit the /etc/nsswitch.conf file so that all uncommented entries have the word files before any other name service.

    The /etc/nsswitch.conf specifies which name service to use for a particular machine. The following code shows an example of an /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

    hosts: files nis