InformationWeek

November 17, 1997

InternetView: Installing Solaris Still A Chore

t had been at least a couple of years since I last installed Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system, so I only vaguely recalled the arcane configuration procedure necessary to make a Solaris box a working member of the Internet. Surely, I thought, Sun engineers would have smoothed out the process by now-especially considering the large number of Sun machines that are serving up Web pages and E-mail on the Internet. I was wrong.

Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to have customers install my operating system and leave them scratching their heads as to how to configure it to resolve domain names using DNS and connect to a default Internet gateway router. Windows NT and 95 and the Mac OS make it pretty darn easy, and I can't imagine that it would require more than 50 lines of code added to Sun's X-Windows installation program. Instead, the configuration procedure for the default gate way and DNS resolution is part of Solaris' system administration mythology-experienced people know about it, but the rest of us are clueless unless we happen to stumble upon the answer buried in the documentation or in an FAQ file on the Internet.

Some might argue that I'm missing the bigger picture of the networks where Sun machines are typically installed. Those networks may run Sun's NIS+ for domain name resolution and use JumpStart to install Solaris over a network. That may be true in some cases, but giving people the option of configuring those things at installation time is still an essential configuration step for smaller installations-and one that is easily automated. In any case, you shouldn't hear any Sun representatives arguing against it. That's because the operating system in question, Solaris 2.6 with the Solaris Server Intranet Extension 1.0, is supposed to be Sun's answer to Windows NT Server 4.0.

While trying to outgun Microsoft feature for feature, Sun also wants to match NT's usabi lity-an NT strength and a Solaris weakness. The best thing Sun has done is announce that it will make all its administrative interfaces browser-based using Java applets and Web pages. That's a smart, but certainly not a new, idea, and Sun has a long way to go (Solaris 2.7, sometime next year) before we see it reach fruition.

If nothing else, Sun should know better than to make users sweat so much over such small but important configuration details. Sun pioneered the concept of the Internet server 10 years ago and has had plenty of time to do decent usability engineering. I'm not asking Sun to turn Solaris into another NT; I just want some help with the predictable basics.

You can read Jason Levitt's Internet Zone column on InformationWeek Online at techweb.cmp.com/iw/author/internet.htm

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