SEE THIS PAGE FOR HOW TO SETUP DHCP.

v2.0 - June 24th, 2001.

Bill Bradford
mrbill@sunhelp.org

DHCP Configuration:
-------------------
Here's the easy part - setting up your Solaris system to get its TCP/IP 
configuration information via DHCP (the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, 
which RoadRunner uses).

DHCP under Solaris 2.5.1 is not offically supported by Sun, and no software
to do this is provided with Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1, but you can get software
to enable this functionality at http://www.isc.org/dhcp.html.  
If you need help compiling, installing or configuring ISC's DHCP, contact 
them; once you've got it installed and working, skip to the next step.

You must perform these steps with "root" or "superuser" privledges.

As for Solaris 2.6 through 8, setting up DHCP is very easy.  Assuming that 
your SPARCstation or Intel-based Solaris system is already on a network, 
this is all that it takes to enable DHCP:

	1. "touch /etc/dhcp.le0" (for Intel-based systems, replace the ".le0"
	   for the rest of these instructions with ".iprb0", or whatever the
	   ethernet interface for your system might be).  For newer SPARC
           systems such as the Ultra 1, use "hme0".

	2.  "touch /etc/hostname.le0".  You need to make *SURE* that this file
	    is EMPTY - otherwise, DHCP configuration wont work.

	3.  Make sure that /etc/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.

	4.  "touch /etc/notrouter" - this creates a file to tell Solaris that
	    your system will not be performing routing or packet-forwarding
	    duties.  If it already exists, good.  Leave it be. 8-)

	5.  "touch /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 a blank/empty file.  If it already
	    exists, rename it and create the emtpy file in its place.

	6.  "touch /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.

	7.  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 steps 1 through 7, 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, login as root or superuser, and 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 
le0: 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 le0 (iprb0 on Intel/X86 systems); 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.

There you go!  From this point on, you should be able to cruise the Internet
at will with your Solaris system.  

If you've got questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to
contact me via email at mrbill@sunhelp.org.  

For other Sun and Solaris related help, you might want to take a look at a 
web site I run, at http://www.sunhelp.org.

-- Bill