New Features in Solaris Express 2/05
This section describes all features that are new or have been enhanced in
the Solaris Express 2/05 release.
Support for iSCSI Devices
This device management feature is new in the Solaris Express 2/05 release.
Support for Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) is provided in this release.
iSCSI is an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking standard for linking data storage
subsystems. By carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, the iSCSI protocol enables you
to mount disk devices, from across the network, onto your local system. On
your local system, you can use the devices like block devices.
The iSCSI protocol does the following:
Runs across existing Ethernet networks
Uses existing management tools for IP networks
Can be used to connect to fibre-channel or iSCSI Storage Area Network (SAN) environments
You can use the iscsiadm command to set up and manage your iSCSI
devices. For more information, see the System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems and the iscsiadm(1M) man page.
Fibre-Channel HBA Port Utility
This system administration feature is new in the Solaris Express 2/05 release.
fcinfo is a command-line interface that collects administrative information on fibre-channel host bus
adapter (HBA) ports. This interface also collects data about any fibre-channel targets that
might be connected to those ports in a Storage Area Network (SAN).
For further information, see the fcinfo(1M) man page.
Metaslot in the Cryptographic Framework
This security feature is new in the Solaris Express 2/05 release. This feature
is of interest to both system administrators and software developers.
The metaslot is a component of the Solaris cryptographic framework library, libpkcs11.so.
With metaslot software, an application that needs encryption can specify its cryptographic needs.
With these specifications, the most suitable cryptographic mechanism that is available on the
system will be supplied. The metaslot serves as a single virtual slot with
the combined capabilities of all tokens and slots that have been installed in
the framework. Effectively, the metaslot enables an application to connect transparently with any available
cryptographic service through a single slot.
The metaslot is automatically enabled. The system administrator can explicitly disable the metaslot
if preferred.
When an application requests a cryptographic service, the metaslot points to the most
appropriate slot, which simplifies the process of selecting a slot. In some cases,
a different slot might be required, in which case the application must perform
a separate search explicitly.
Further information about the cryptographic framework is provided in the Solaris Security for Developers Guide. See also the
System Administration Guide: Security Services.
IKE Enhancements
These security enhancements are new in the Solaris Express 2/05 release.
IKE is fully compliant with NAT-Traversal support as described in RFC 3947 and
RFC 3948. IKE operations use the PKCS #11 library from the
cryptographic framework, which improves performance. The cryptographic framework provides a softtoken keystore for applications
that use the metaslot. When IKE uses the metaslot, you have the option
of storing the keys on an attached board or in the softtoken keystore.
For further information about IKE, see the System Administration Guide: IP Services.
Xorg Release 6.8.2
This desktop enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 2/05 release.
The Xorg X server implementation has been upgraded from the 6.8.0 version to
version 6.8.2 in this release. This upgrade fixes several bugs in the
modules for various graphics cards. The upgrade also adds support for new graphics card
models.
New and Updated Drivers
In the Solaris Express 2/05 release, the chxge driver supports the Chelsio 10G
Ethernet controller card. This support is provided on 32–bit and 64–bit architectures for
both x86 and SPARC platforms. This driver supports the DLPI interface and checksum
offload.
For detailed information, see the chxge(7D) man page.
