How do you setup Solaris to use RoadRunner's cable modem service?
RoadRunner uses General Instrument's SURFboardor other cable modem hooked up to a coax cable on one side and
a straight-through Ethernet cable on the other side.
The real throughput is about 6-MB/sec. on downlinks
and 768KB/sec. on uplinks.
The cable modem looks like a router to your computer.
RoadRunner configures home systems with
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP),
which provides the IP address, default route, and name servers.
RoadRunner only supports Windows and Macs, but it works fine
with Solaris (they just won't help you setup or diagnose Solaris DHCP).
You need Solaris 2.6 or higher for DHCP.
To set it up for Solaris, follow these steps, as root:
- "touch /etc/dhcp.iprb0" (replace the ".iprb0"
with whatever the ethernet interface for your system might be, as shown
by "ifconfig -a")
- "cp /dev/null /etc/hostname.iprb0".
You need to make *SURE* that this file
is EMPTY - otherwise, DHCP configuration won't work.
- Make sure that /etc/inet/hosts only has one line in it, the one
containing "127.0.0.1 localhost". Any other lines will be
ignored, and any additional necessary lines will be added by the DHCP
client at boot time.
- "touch /etc/notrouter" -
this creates a file to tell Solaris that
your system will not be performing routing or packet-forwarding
duties (if that's the case in your situation).
If it already exists, good. Leave it be. 8-)
- "cp /dev/null /etc/defaultrouter"
- since the DHCP client software will
automatically put the needed entries in this file, we just need to
make sure that it exists as an empty file. If it already
exists, rename it and create the empty file in its place.
- "cp /dev/null /etc/resolv.conf"
- again, the necessary entries will be
added by the DHCP client. If you already have this file, rename it
and create an empty file in its place.
- Edit the file /etc/nsswitch.conf, and look at the "hosts:" line.
By default, it reads "files"; change it to read
"hosts: files dns". This will enable your machine to resolve
addresses using DNS, the Domain Name System.
Once you've performed these steps, your machine is ready to get its
networking information via DHCP. The easiest way to do this is to reboot
your machine. You will see status messages during boot about the DHCP
client, this is normal.
Once the machine is booted type the "ifconfig -a" command.
You will see output similar to this:
$ ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=849 mtu 8232
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
iprb0: flags=4843 mtu 1500
inet 24.93.53.4 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 24.93.53.255
ether 8:0:20:1b:1:72
The entry we're concerned about is iprb0 (lo0 is the dummy loopback interface);
just make sure that its configured via DHCP, and that an IP address and
broadcast address was assigned. You can also check the /etc/resolv.conf
and /etc/defaultrouter files to make sure they were configured by the
DHCP client.
Type "nslookup sun.drydog.com" to test that /etc/nsswitch.conf
and /etc/resolv.conf are setup correctly for DNS lookups.
If not, they may need to be hand-edited with values provided by your ISP.
These files are documented in nsswitch.conf(4) and resolv.conf(4).
The resolv.conf needs to have "domain" and "nameserver" lines.
Type "netstat -rn"
to see if there's a "default" destination configured
in /etc/defaultrouter and type "ping sun.drydog.com" to verify routing
is OK. Use "traceroute sun.drydog.com" to diagnose routing problems.
Type "hostname" to see if it says "unknown."
If so, DHCP did not provide a hostname.
One workaround is to edit
/etc/init.d/network and replace all occurrences of "unknown"
with your real hostname.
This information is adapted from a web page by Bill Bradford at
http://home.austin.rr.com/sunhelp/rr/solarisrr.html.
Some (older) RoadRunner setups may still require a RoadRunner login program.
This is explained in that link.
RoadRunner information is at
http://www.rr.com/
and help is at
http://help.rr.com/
The Unofficial RR FAQ is at
http://members.tripod.com/~tlarrow/rrfaq.htm
For generic cable modem information,
see the e-zine article "xDSL and cable modems" referenced in the
previous question on @Home service.
The article covers instructions on enabling Solaris with a cable ISP.
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