> I don't even know there are any GUI tools on Solaris
> for networking? What would I use them for, I can
> configure networking on Solaris within 15 seconds
> with my eyes blindfolded and hands tied behind my
> back, it's that easy.

What if, for instance, you've installed OpenSolaris on a machine that had a 
network card OpenSolaris wasn't able to detect ? Network hasn't been 
configured, you naturally continue with the installation hoping to make it work 
after it boots (by looking up a driver, etc..). It's still not being detected, 
you file an RFE and insert some PCI Ethernet card you know works. 

Then you need to:

1) edit /etc/hosts
2) create /etc/defaultrouter
3) create /etc/hostname.rge0 (or whatever your interface was)
4) create /etc/resolv.conf
5) edit /etc/nsswitch.conf (add "dns" to hosts, ipnodes)
6) restart the network service

... and you magically have to remember all that, because you don't have any 
access to the Internet yet

Now if you have solid experience with Solaris (as you do) it's easy & simple, 
if you don't, you'd be surprised if you'd say forget/didn't know about (e), but 
I sure hope you don't expect [i]everyone[/i] to know what nsswitch.conf is for 
and why "dns" wasn't there when your network card wasn't detected. 

In the end [i]good[/i] UI tools are absolutely essential. Saying that CLI is 
easy and always gives you more control is like saying that [i]ed[/i] should be 
used for coding on huge projects, does it give you more control ? will it allow 
you to do safe refactorings ? will it do code inspection for you ? will it 
correctly find usages for you ? A good IDE allows you to focus on your project, 
not coding details.

A proper UI tool would verify that your input was correct (instead of having to 
look at 'svcs -xv' (which you'd also have to know of), and check the logs which 
aren't always that informative...), it would present all this information in 
one window, instead of being scattered through 4-5 files, and most importantly 
it would automate all the steps for you, so instead of spending on this N 
minutes you could set up your network in just under 30 seconds.

The networking tool in OpenSolaris is okay (except that it doesn't update 
nsswitch and messed up my /etc/hosts), but it's certainly a step in the right 
direction...
 
 
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