Virtual Box guest OS Solaris 10 U9 networking

I'm running Virtual Box 4 on Ubuntu 10.04 in my Toshiba laptop. I downloaded Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 Virtual Machine for Oracle VM VirtualBox and the installation was pretty simple and straight forward. My VBox was configured to use NAT. I chose networked - yes and name service - none during installation. After successful installation I took the following steps to enable networking by configuring DNS.

1. Added "nameserver 192.168.1.1" at /etc/resolv.conf
2. Aadded "10.0.2.2" at /etc/defaultrouter
I took these two information from another virtual machine, Solaris 11 Express 2010.11
3. Copied /etc/nsswitch.dns to /etc/nsswitch.conf
4. Enabled dns/client service using SVCS (svcadm enable dns/client)

However, I was not able to access internet after taking these steps. "netstat -rn" output was showing the default gateway was not configured properly and "route add" command was failing as well. My system was not able to ping the gateway. I got fed up with this and ran "sys-unconfig". After that I took the following configuration steps  -

Networked -> Yes
DHCP -> yes
IPV6 -> No
Kerberos -> No
Name Service -> None
NFSV4 domain config -> derived by system

and repeated steps 1-4 again. After a reboot networking started working as intended.

OpenSolaris 2008.05 (part - II)

Check Out :

OpenSolaris 2008.05 (part - I)

Today I have installed open solaris 05/2008 in my system . I have a desktop pc with p4 processor (2.8 GHz), Intel D845GVSR motherboard , 768 MB of physical memory and a 25GB partition I have alloted for this os.
I have my previous experience with SXDE (solaris Express Developer Edition) 9/07. Installation was much similar , "gparted" was used to delete a partition and make a new PRIMARY partition of type "linux-swap". During installation this partition was changed to "solaris". Installation goes on smoothly , without creating any problem. If you have windows installed in your system , it will be automatically added in your grub menu (I have it on the first partition of my hard disk , I don't know what will happen otherwise !!). If you have linux installed in your system be sure take a printout of /etc/grub.conf . Then add it to the solaris grub menu i.e /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst. If you have vista installed in your system , You may face some problems. (I didn't try vista with this os , but tried with SXDE 9/07.. Check out what happend).
(Check out how to get prepared for multiboot system with OpenSolaris 2008.05)
After successful installation , during system boot I got a warning like : "No randomness provider enabled for /dev/random. Use cryptoadm(1M) to enable a provider". I was unable to resolve it , according to web search it's a bug (Read More ...) .
My first login was really a good experience... a decent wallpaper, slim design, attractive look and feel .. everything was pretty improved.

[Click on the image to get larger view]

Network Configuration :

"Administration --> Network" was the first thing I was trying to configure. I noticed that it needs no root password for configuration. I was needed to disable "nwam" as I am using static ip address.Following steps I have taken to move to the manual mode from automagic mode.

# svcadm disable svc:/network/physical:nwam
# svcadm enable svc:/network/physical:default
(learn more...)

after I configured it properly and checked that my router is detected.
"nwam" is also working fine after the following steps :

1)I edit /etc/nwam/llp which was previously :

iprb0 dhcp

and now :

iprb0 static 192.168.1.105/24

2)I checked /etc/defaultrouter
, it was already
192.168.1.1

3)I edit a line of /etc/nsswitch.conf which was previously :

hosts: files

and now ;

hosts: files dns

4)I edit /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver 192.168.1.1

Thus I connected my system to internet.

menu.lst is in different location :

I was trying to edit the "menu.lst" from "/boot/grub/menu.lst" but found that "For zfs root, menu.lst has moved to /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst". menu.lst is pretty simpler than previous versions (SXDE 9/07) I have used .

Sound device working fine :

my sound device has a profile like:
vendor : Intel corporation
model : 82801DB (ICH4 family)
AC'97 Audio controller

my another audio device was not detected in sxde 9/07 (Read more...) but open solaris 05/08 has detected the above said and also working in the perfect way !!

Terminal behavior is more improved :

my arrow keys were not working in super user mode in sxde 9/07 like up key to bring the last command etc. but now they are working in both user mode and super user mode !!!!

Visual Effects are not working :

May be it's a problem of my hardware device but neither "normal" nor "extra" visual effect is working !!! According to the result I got from "System --> about open solaris --> devices -->" (this is another new feature !!!!) my video device has a component like : "Intel corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdle-G]/GE chipset integrated graphics device" and a driver "i915". Actually I have an intel motherboard of D845GVSR and NO graphics card (that's why "extra " not running , but what's wrong with "normal" ????).

Compiz , an OpenGL based 3D graphical window manager was used in this distributions. Compiz website has really impressive screenshots !!! Be sure to check out this feature ...

Next : OpenSolaris 2008.05 (part - III)

Fedora update solved wireless issue

I am using Fedora 7 distribution in my system. I have a wireless router through which I want to connect my system to Internet. My installation dvd contains fedora of kernel version "2.6.21-1.3194.fc7". After correctly configuring my wireless network connection when I clicked the "activate" button I get an error message like:

Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.

Anyway, I decide to update my system and applied "yum -y update". after update operation, I found that a new kernel version "2.6.23.15-80.fc7" has been installed. I didn't change any of my network settings after the update procedure, but now I can activate it without any problem.

Network Configuration in Solaris

I have a router : HUEWEI QUIDWAY WA1003A. My desktop pc and my laptop with 5 operating systems all together is connected through that router. I have disabled DHCP and using different static ip address for all of them. For solaris I set up a lan client in my router configuration with ip address 192.168.1.103 and mac address of my system.
NWAM was enabled by default. I took following steps to configure my network connection :
1)I edit /etc/nwam/llp which was previously :
wpi0 dhcp
and now :
wpi0 static 192.168.1.103/24
2)I edit /etc/defaultrouter
192.168.1.1
3)I add a default gateway permanently:
#route -p add default 192.168.1.1
4)I edit a line of /etc/nsswitch.conf which was previously :
hosts: files
and now ;
hosts: files dns
5)I edit /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 192.168.1.1

after that I restart nwam ("svcadm restart nwam") and a pop up message told me that connection to WA1003A (MY ROUTER)has been established and got ip address 192.168.1.103.

This method I followed for SXDE 9/07 and SXDE 1/08. Check out my configuration details for OpenSolaris 2008.05 from here.