System Administration Guide: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization

ProcedureHow to Replace a Network Interface Card With Dynamic Reconfiguration

Aside from servers, most laptops have PCMCIA slots that support dynamic reconfiguration (DR). This procedure shows how DR is now facilitated by the separation of the network link configuration from the network hardware configuration. You no longer need to reconfigure your network links after you complete DR. Instead, you just transfer the link configurations of the removed NIC to be inherited by the replacement NIC.

Before You Begin

Procedures to perform DR vary with the type of system. Make sure that you complete the following first:

  1. Assume the proper role that allows you to perform DR on the system, such as the Primary Administrator role or superuser.


  2. (Optional) Display information about physical attributes of data links currently on the system.

    # dladm show-phys
  3. Perform the DR procedures as detailed in your system's documentation to remove a NIC and then insert a replacement NIC.

    Consult your system's DR documentation to perform this step.

    After you have installed the replacement NIC, proceed to the next step.

  4. Make sure that the replacement NIC is not being referenced by other configurations in the system.

    For example, the replacement NIC you install is ce0. If a file /etc/hostname.ce0 exists in the system, remove that file.

  5. Transfer the link configuration of the removed NIC to the replacement NIC.

    # dladm rename-link replacementNIC-linkname removedNIC-linkname

    Refers to the default link name of the replacement NIC upon installation. When you insert a NIC into a system for the first time, the NIC's link name is hardware-based, such as bge0 or ce0.


    Refers to the customized link name of the NIC that you removed.

  6. Complete the DR process by enabling the new NIC's resources to become available for use by the Solaris release.

    For example, you use the cfgadm command to configure the NIC. For more information see the cfgadm(1M) man page.

  7. (Optional) Display link information.

    For example, you can use either dladm show-phys or dladm show-link to show information about the data links.

Example 2–2 Replacing a Network Card

This example shows how a bge card with link name net0 is replaced by a ce card. The link configurations of net0 are transferred from bge to ce after ce is connected to the system.

# dladm show-phys
LINK          MEDIA        STATE     SPEED     DUPLEX     DEVICE
subitops1     Ethernet     up        100Mb     full       qfe3
net0          Ethernet     up        100Mb     full       bge0

You perform the DR-specific steps such as using cfgadm to disconnect bge and then install ce. Then the procedure continues.

# ls /etc/hostname.*

# rm /etc/hostname.ce0
# dladm rename-link ce0 net0

# dladm show-phys
LINK        MEDIA        STATE     SPEED     DUPLEX     DEVICE
subitops1   Ethernet     up        100Mb     full       qfe3
net0        Ethernet     up        100Mb     full       ce0