Troubleshooting Solaris 11 network interfaces

Published   Read time 1 min 59 sec(s)   (3010 views).  Solaris  

This is a short article that provides pointers to troubleshooting a Solaris 11 network interface.

To show the network interface and it's state, we use ipadm with the show-if option, for example:

# ipadm show-if
IFNAME       CLASS        STATE     ACTIVE     OVER
lo0          loopback     ok        yes        --
net0         ip           ok        yes        --
net1         ip           ok        yes        --
net2         ip           ok        yes        --

To show the IP address, type and status of a network interface we can use the ipadm command with the show-addr option.

For all interfaces:

# ipadm show-addr
ADDROBJ          TYPE       STATE     ADDR
lo0/v4           static     ok        127.0.0.1/8
net0/v4          static     ok        192.168.1.68/24
net1/v4          static     ok        172.64.10.101/24
net2/v4          static     ok        129.111.1.141/24

For a selected interface, we would issue:

ipadm show-addr <network-interface>
For example: 
# ipadm show-addr net0
ADDROBJ          TYPE       STATE     ADDR
net0/v4          static     ok        192.168.1.68/24
net0/v4a         static     ok        10.1.1.12/24

To show the network interface properties with MTU details, we would issue:

ipadm show-ifprop -p mtu <network-interface>

For example:

# ipadm show-ifprop -p mtu net0
IFNAME  PROPERTY  PROTO  PERM  CURRENT  PERSISTENT  DEFAULT  POSSIBLE
net0    mtu       ipv4   rw    1500      --         1500     68-1500

To show a network interface properties, we use the show-addrprop flag for imadm, for example:

# ipadm show-addrprop net0/v4
ADDROBJ  PROPERTY    PERM CURRENT       PERSISTENT  DEFAULT       POSSIBLE
net0/v4  broadcast   r-   192.168.1.255 -           192.168.1.255 -
net0/v4  deprecated  rw   off           -           off           on,off
net0/v4  prefixlen   rw   24            24          24            1-30,32
net0/v4  private     rw   off           -           off           on,off
net0/v4  transmit    rw   on            -           on            on,off
net0/v4  zone        rw   global        -           global        -

Using netadm we can list network configuration events to see changes, using the -v flag we get verbose output

# netadm show-events -v
EVENT          DESCRIPTION                                            
OBJECT_ACTION  ncp Automatic -> action enable
OBJECT_STATE   ncp Automatic -> state online, active
OBJECT_STATE   ncu link:net0 -> state offline*, (re)initialized but not 
...
OBJECT_STATE   ncu interface:net0 -> state offline*, waiting for IP add
...
OBJECT_STATE   loc NoNet -> state offline*, method/service executing
...
IF_STATE       net0 -> state flags 1004843 addr 10.1.1.12/24
...
OBJECT_STATE   loc Automatic -> state offline*, method/service executi

We can also check an interface link state using extended stats using the -x flag:

# netadm list -x
TYPE        PROFILE        STATE          AUXILIARY STATE
ncp         DefaultFixed   offline        disabled by administrator
...
ncu:phys    net0           offline        interface/link is down
....
loc         DefaultFixed   offline        conditions for activation are u

Note: offline indicates a cable or connection issue.