I've nearly pulled all of my hair out trying to get DHCP to work under Solaris 9 x86. I have an Intel Pro100 (82558) NIC. If I select networking YES dhcp YES during installation, the system hangs at "wait a minute" for far more than a minute, and eventually returns the error "could not contact a dhcp server on the interface ifpb0". I get the same error on my university LAN (uidaho.edu) which uses DHCP quite happily with Win2K and Linux boxes. I get the same error on my home LAN, where I have a Win2K box with internet connection sharing. Linux and Win2K DHCP from the internet connection sharing box just fine. Much Google-ing hasn't helped. Some suggestions were to configure the networking later. Following instructions here (e.g., cat /dev/null > /etc/dhcp.iprb0) to get it going manually haven't helped. Following Solaris documentation hasn't helped. Help!

I had exacly the same problem. Linux, Windows .Net 2003 Server all work with no problem. Solaris just won't work. I too have tried Google but haven't found anything. Ive tried both 3Com 3C905 & Intel Pro 10/100 cards and neither work. I can't believe that Solaris is that bad that it can't work with this common hardware. It's no wonder it's dying in the marketplace. If I can figure this out I'll let you know; hope you do the same.

Well, I'm bald. But, I'm posting this follow-up from Solaris 9, using DHCP, connected across a hub to my Win2K box running internet connection sharing. Here's the ticket: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/message/43076 The first suggestion worked. I typed "eeprom acpi-user-options=0x2" and on reboot everything works. I still have the problem with the hostname being "unknown" but hell, I can see the outside internet world!

Someone else posted this solution for unknown hostname with dhcp soloaris. First of all, For Solaris 8 we need to edit the file /etc/init.d/network and change the line that reads. You can put a #sign before the line to disable it or change the line completely. "dhcp") hostname=`/sbin/dhcpinfo Hostname` ;; to # "dhcp") hostname=`/sbin/dhcpinfo Hostname` ;; "dhcp") hostname=`shcat /etc/nodename` ;; Then, edit the file /etc/init.d/inetsvc and change the line that reads hostname=`/sbin/dhcpinfo Hostname` to # hostname=`/sbin/dhcpinfo Hostname` hostname=`/usr/bin/cat /etc/nodename` Save the files and reboot the system. The system's hostname will be the entry in the file /etc/nodename.