Mike Gerdts writes:
> The "primary IP address" question doesn't really have the right
> answer.  hostname(1) does not return an IP address and as best as I
> can tell, there is no such notion of a primary IP address.

Right; it just reports the system nodename, which can be set to
anything that the system administrator thinks is convenient.

Solaris systems don't have such a thing as a "Primary IP address."
There is such a concept as a "primary interface name," but it's
meaningful only with respect to the current DHCP client
implementation: the "primary interface" is the one for which
/sbin/dhcpinfo will return results if you don't specify a particular
interface with "-i".

Other than that, it doesn't do anything.

Even that definition will likely go away with time, because it's quite
restrictive and often doesn't match what people want to do with the
system.  For instance, it's not at all unreasonable on a multi-homed
system to say that you want to have the DNS server addresses unioned
together, and have all of them in /etc/resolv.conf to cover for
failures.  The current "primary interface" mechanism makes that quite
difficult to accomplish (you have to hack around with eventhook
scripts).

> I *wish* I could tell Solaris what its primary interface is.  This is
> a common pain point when many physical and virtual interfaces exist
> and authorization (firewall, NFS, etc.) is performed
> by IP address.

What would "primary" mean in this context?  What would the system do
differently?

Perhaps the ifconfig "usesrc" option might get you closer to what you
want, but I don't think I understand what you're expecting from
designated primary interface or IP address.

I suspect that the NWAM project might be interested in your needs here.

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive         71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757   42.496N   Fax +1 781 442 1677
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