| FEATURE |
DESCRIPTION |
|
IPv6 |
| IPv6 Core |
IPv6 is a new version of Internet Protocol (IP) designed to be an evolutionary step from the current version, IPv4. It is a natural increment to IPv4 that provides a platform for new Internet functionality.
|
|
Java Enhancements |
| JavaTM Development Kit (JDKTM) 1.2.1_03 |
The JDK 1.2.1_03, also known as the JavaTM 2 SDK, is the first SolarisTM release of Java technology based on Java 2. It includes:
- Substantially increased scalability and performance
- Improved class libraries, including the new Java 2 APIs
- Enhanced memory system
- High-performing, scalable JavaTM Virtual Machine (JVM)
- Fast Java thread synchronization
|
|
Installation and Management Improvements |
| Booting a System Over the Network with DHCP |
Network installs can now use DHCP to acquire boot parameters and network configuration information needed to boot a client over the network. DHCP booting is supported on certain SPARCTM and IA based systems. |
| DHCP Manager |
DHCP Manager provides a Java technology-based graphical interface for configuring and managing the SolarisTM DHCP server and DHCP databases. It allows the system administrator to use a single tool to perform all DHCP management duties: set up and manage DHCP servers, manage client configuration options and macros, and manage networks and IP addresses that are under DHCP management. |
| Support for Domain Name System (DNS) in System Identification Utilities |
DNS has been added to the list of name services that can be configured through the system identification utilities. |
| Support for IPv6 in the System Identification Utilities |
Systems can now be configured to use IPv6 in addition to IPv4 at install time. |
| Web Start Enhanced Installation CD |
SolarisTM Web Start, Sun's graphical, wizard based, Java technology-powered application that installs the Solaris operating environment and other software, is now distributed on a separate installation CD. |
|
New Networking Features |
| Enhanced FTP Server |
The ftp server software in this Solaris release is modeled after the popular Washington University ftp server, wu-ftpd, but has been enhanced to include simplified system administration procedures. |
| IPsec for IPv4 |
The IP Security Architecture (IPSec) provides protection for IP datagrams. The protection can include confidentiality, strong integrity of the data, partial sequence integrity (replay protection), and data authentication. |
| IPv6 NFSTM/RPC Compliant |
This feature adds IPv6 support to NFS and RPC in a seamless manner. There are no changes to existing commands related to NFS. Most RPC applications will also run over IPv6 without any change. Some advanced RPC applications with transport knowledge might require updates. |
| Logical Link Controller 2 (LLC2) |
The Class II logical link control driver (llc2) interfaces network software (NetBIOS, SNA, OSI, etc.), running under the Solaris operating environment to a physical LAN network controlled by one of the supported communications adapters. This version of the llc2 driver includes support for both connectionless and connection-oriented logical link control class II llc2 operations for Ethernet, Token Ring, and FDDI adapters when accessed through the appropriate Solaris MAC layer driver. |
| Mobile IPv4 |
IPv4 mobility support enables a mobile node to move from one link to another without changing the mobile node's IP address. It accomplishes this through the assignment of an IP address to the mobile node within its home subnet prefix on its home link, and is known as the node's home address. |
| NIS/NIS+ Over IPv6 Transports |
This feature enables users to store IPv6 addresses in the NIS and NIS+ naming services. |
| Service Location Protocol |
The Service Location Protocol (SLP) is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards-track protocol for discovering shared resources (such as printers, fileservers, netcams, and so on) in an enterprise network. The Solaris 8 operating environment contains
a full implementation of SLP, including APIs which allow developers to write SLP-enabled applications, and system administrators relative ease of administration. |
sendmail 8.9.3 |
New options and utilities improve the storage and security functionality of sendmail. |
|
File System Enhancements |
| NFS Logging |
NFS logging adds transaction logging to the NFS server. Configuration options are used to determine which transactions are logged. This feature allows for logging of download activities using WebNFS and NFS servers. |
| Security Negotiation for WebNFSTM |
A new protocol has been added to enable a WebNFS client to negotiate a selected security mechanism with a WebNFS server. This provides the ability to use secure transactions when using WebNFS. |
| Universal Disk Format (UDF) File System |
The UDF file system, the industry-standard format for storing information on optical media technology is supported in this Solaris release. The UDF file system can be used to exchange data on the following components when they contain a UDF file
system:
- CD-ROMs
- disks and diskettes
- Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc (DVD) — DVD-ROM on supported platforms
|
| WebNFSTM Software Developer's Kit 1.2 |
The 1.2 release of the WebNFS Software Development Kit (SDK) includes the API classes for the XFileChooser, a JavaBeanTM that provides a graphical component for selecting files either locally or remotely via NFS. |
|
Diagnosability and Availability Enhancements |
The coreadm command |
The coreadm command provides flexible core file naming conventions and better core file retention. |
| Examining Core Files With Proc Tools |
Some of the proc tools have been enhanced to examine process core Files as well as live processes. The proc tools are utilities that can manipulate features of the /proc File system. |
Improved Device Configuration (devsfadm) |
The devfsadm command manages the special device Files in the /dev and /devices directories. By default, devfsadm attempts to load every driver in the system and attach to all possible device instances. Then it creates the device Files in the /devices directory and the logical links in the /dev directory. In addition to managing the /dev and /devices directories, devfsadm also maintains the path_to_inst(4) instance database. |
| Improved System Error Messages |
The system boot and error message format now provides a numeric identifier, module name, and time stamp to messages generated by the syslog(1M) logging facility. In addition, messages that were previously lost after a system panic and reboot are now saved. |
| New Remote Console Messaging Features |
The following new console features improve your ability to troubleshoot remote systems:
- The
consadm command enables you to select a serial device as an auxiliary (or remote) console. Using the consadm command, a system administrator can configure one or more serial ports to display redirected console messages and to host sulogin sessions when the system transitions between run levels.
- Console output now consists of kernel and
syslog messages written to a new pseudo device, /dev/sysmsg. In addition, rc script startup messages are written to /dev/msglog. Previously, all of these messages were written to /dev/console.
- The
consadm command runs a daemon to monitor auxiliary console devices.
|
| TCP/IP Internal Trace Support |
TCP/IP now provides internal trace support by logging TCP communication when a connection is terminated by an RST packet. When an RST packet is transmitted or received, information on as many as 10 packets, which were transmitted or received immediately before on that connection, is logged with the connection information. |
|
Performance and Scalability Enhancements |
apptrace |
A new application debugging tool, apptrace, enables application developers and system support personnel to debug application or system problems by providing call traces to Solaris shared libraries, which may
show the series of events leading up to a point of failure. |
busstat |
A new system monitoring tool, busstat, provides access to bus-related performance counters on supported SPARC platforms. Viewing these performance counters with busstat enables you to measure hardware clock cycles and bus statistics including DMA and cache coherency transactions on a multiprocessor system. |
New Alternative to poll() Interface |
/dev/poll is a second form of polling for the completion of I/O events that provides much higher performance when a very large number of events must be polled for on File descriptors
that remain open for a long time. This feature supplements poll(2), it does not replace poll(2). |
|
Realtime Systems Enhancements |
| High Resolution Timers |
The high resolution timers bypass the traditional 100 millisecond clock interface to expose the granularity of the physical clock interrupt from the hardware. |
| Real-Time Threads |
Low precision real-time applications may run more than one thread in the real-time (RT) scheduling class at a time. |
|
Common Desktop Environment (CDE) Enhancements |
|
Ease of Use |
| Hot Key Editor |
The Hot Key Editor enables users to specify certain keys to be associated with certain Workspace Manager functions. |
| SDT Image |
The SDT Image feature enables users to capture screen shots by typing a command at the command line. |
| ToolTips |
ToolTips identifies the function of an icon when the user places the cursor on an icon. |
|
Standards |
| Java Media Framework |
The Java Media Framework integrates the MPEG 1 and 2, QuickTime, AVI, and MID media players into the Solaris operating environment. |
| PDA Support |
This feature provides pilot synchronization with desktop mail, calendar, address manager, and memos. |
| X11R6.4 Support |
The XServer has been upgraded to include these enhancements:
- Broadway web-enabled
- Mulitple monitor support with Xinerama
- Minimal colormap flashing
|
|
Interoperability |
| NetscapeTM Application Launcher |
The Netscape Application Launcher enables users to access to the Netscape Composer and NNTP applications without launching Netscape Communicator. |
|
Management |
| Print Client |
This feature enables users to configure their set of printers and select a default printer. |
|
Printing |
| Print Naming Enhancement |
This Solaris release supports the printers database in /etc/nsswitch.conf, the name service switch File. The printers database provides centralized printer configuration information to print clients on the network. |
| Solaris Print Manager | Solaris Print Manager is a Java technology-based graphical user interface that enables you to manage local and remote printer access. This tool can be used in the following name service environments: NIS, NIS+, NIS+ with Federated Naming Service (FNS), and Files. |
|
Language Support |
| Universal Language Coverage |
Solaris 8 will now include, as a standard feature, support for more than 90 locales, covering 37 languages - all on the base Solaris CD. |
| Improved Language Installation and Setup |
Changes to packaging on the language CD have reduced the storage requirements for a mixed language installation and a redesign of the install interface makes language selection and grouping extremely intuitive. |
| Expanded Unicode Support |
Solaris 8 continues to broaden support for Unicode, with the addition of new Unicode (UTF-8) locales for Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. |
Customer-Extensible Codeset Conversion (geniconvtbl) |
Developers now have the ability with Solaris 8 to create user-defined codeset converters, allowing table driven creation and easy addition of new codeset conversions. Modification to existing Solaris codeset conversions is also supported. |
| Improved Data Interoperability |
Data interoperability with non-Solaris environments has been improved in Solaris 8 with the addition of the following new iconv data conversion utilities:
iconv for Japanese mainframe data typesiconv for Microsoft data encodings (including user defined characters)iconv for UTF-8 interoperability in China and Koreaiconv for various Unicode encoding formats and international and de facto industry standard codesets |
| Input Method Additions |
Solaris 8 now supports ATOK-12, one of the most popular language engines and input method editors used in Japan today. |
| New Locales Added |
Two new locales have been added to Solaris 8 for Iceland (ISO8859-15) and Russia (ANSI1251). The new Russian locale is in addition to the existing Russian (8859-5) locale and provides native Microsoft data encoding support. |
|
Documentation |
| AB2 1.4.2 AnswerBookTM Server |
The AnswerBook2TM version 1.4.2 server software provides improved performance, a textual, rather than graphical, navigation interface, and the ability to view and search information by collection. |
| Network Interfaces Programming Guide |
The Network Interfaces Programmer's Guide replaces the Transport Interfaces Guide in the Solaris 8 documentation set. |
| Reference Manual Reorganization |
The section of the SunOSTM Reference Manual that describes the C library functions (but does not include the system calls) now comprises six books instead of one. These books are:
- Basic Library Functions
- Networking Library Functions
- Curses Library Functions
- Threads and Realtime Library Functions
- Extended Library Functions
- Libraries and Headers
In addition, many of the man page suffixes have been changed to reflect the library that contains the function. |
| System Administration Guide, Volume 3 |
The System Administration Guide, Volume 3 is a new document that covers content previously documented in the TCP/IP Administration Guide, the NFS Administration Guide, and the Mail Administration Guide, as well
as information on new and enhanced technology shipping with this Solaris release. The focus is on task-based procedures, with reference material covered separately in the guide. |
|
Software Developer Environment |
| 64-bit Kodak Color Management SystemTM (KCMSTM) libraries |
Kodak Color Management System (KCMSTM) is now providing a 64-bit version of the libraries. Applications which currently use KCMS and wish to convert to the 64-bit operating environment can retain color management. |
| Using Practical Extraction and Report Language (Perl) 5 |
Perl, a powerful general purpose programming language and generally available as freeware, is included in this Solaris release. |
|
Intel Architecture (IA) Platform-Specific Enhancements |
| Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) |
ACPI is a new, more flexible way to configure and control Intel Architecture hardware. ACPI obsoletes Plug and Play (PnP) BIOS and the Intel Multi-Processor Specification (MPSPEC). If ACPI is available on your Intel architecture system, Solaris 8 automatically uses it to configure the hardware. |
| Added Support for Physical Address Extension (PAE) Mode |
With the release of Pentium Pro, Intel introduced a mode called PAE (Physical Address Extension) on its advanced processors. By using PAE, Solaris Intel Platform Edition can address up to 32 Gbytes of physical memory. |
| Boot Partition in Solaris 8 |
Machines running Solaris 8 Intel Platform Edition may now designate a separate boot partition during installation. |
| CD-ROM Boot |
This new feature enables the user to boot a system from an installation CD (rather than the Device Configuration Assistant diskette, as was the case in the past) using the "El Torito" standard. |
Hot-Plugging PCI Controllers With the cfgadm Command |
Hot-plugging PCI controllers is supported in this Solaris release by using the cfgadm command. This means you can add and/or remove a PCI controller on a running system without rebooting the system. |
| Large Disk Support |
By using more modern BIOS interfaces to access the disk, Solaris 8 Intel Platform Edition now fully uses disks larger than 8 Gbytes. |
| PCI Hot-Plug Support |
This feature enables standard PCI adapters to be hot-plugged into a machine with the hot-plug capability that is running Solaris Intel Platform Edition. You can now add (hot-add) or remove (hot-remove) adapters from a system while the system is still running. |
| Universal Serial Bus (USB) Support for Keyboards and Mouse Devices |
Solaris Intel Platform Edition now provides USB support for keyboards and mice. |
| Xeon Enhancements |
To maximize performance, Solaris 8 Intel Platform Edition now supports the PAT (Page Attribute Table) feature of Intel IA-32 processors (Pentium II and later). |
| XMEM (Extended Memory) Support |
XMEM support provides a mechanism that allows a single 32-bit process to efficiently allocate and manage more than 4 Gbytes of physical memory. The XMEM feature is implemented as a File system (xmemfs) that system administrators can mount and use to reserve memory for applications. |
| X Server Video Driver Enhancement |
Solaris Intel Platform Edition now provides support for the following video devices:
- Cirrus Logic GD5465
- 3Dlabs Permedia2 (Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro)
- S3 Trio3D
- Matrox Productiva G100
- Matrox Millennium G200
- Matrox Mystique G200
|
|
IA SCSI Drivers |
cadp Driver Enhancements |
The cadp driver now supports the Hot-Plug SCSI, Hot-Plug PCI, and clustering/multi-initiator features of Solaris Intel Platform Edition. |
ncrs Device Driver Enhancements |
The Solaris ncrs device driver now supports the SCSI hot-plugging functionality and Ultra2TM devices, in addition to including general functionality and performance improvements. |
symhisl Device Driver |
The symhisl device driver, which supports the adapters SYM22910 and SYM21002, is now included in Solaris Intel Platform Edition. |