I have 4 pc's connected to a netgear router. Each has been assigned a static ip. The routers wan port connects to a cable modem and gets its IP by DHCP and its lan port is 192.168.0.1. In windows, all I have to do is give it the default gateway address of 192.168.0.1 and DNS to the outside world is fine. In linux (Redhat) its the same...but I will be buggered if I can get Solaris 8 to work. I have edited the /etc/hosts file so internal name resolution works, but it's be nice to be able to ping the outside world from within Solaris. Any tips please? Oh, I am hopeless when it comes to Solaris, so please be very specific if you would like to help. Many thanks in advance.

You wrote about /etc/hosts file. Did you make proper changes in these files – /etc/nsswitch.conf /etc/resolv.conf /etc/defaultrouter If router has built-in DHCP Server you need to touch /etc/dhcp.interface too.

I must admin I haven't... do these files require the same format as the hosts file...? ie. 192.168.0.1 hostxyz The router does have DHCP, but its disabled. When I set up the solaris8 box I gave it a static IP 192.168.0.x. I ran the route add default 192.168.0.1 and that was fine...it just won't talk to anything outside my little network.

No, they don't have the same format as the /etc/inet/hosts file. You can read the man pages to get the details, but just to summarize: /etc/defaultrouter should contain the IP address of your router box. That will reinstall your default route when the system is rebooted. /etc/resolv.conf should contain a list of dns servers to consult. Do a man on resolv.conf. /etc/nsswitch.conf is your name service switch configuration file. It provides a lookup order for resoving information (like IP address hostname resolution). I suspect you will just copy the /etc/nsswitch.file file on top of /etc/nsswitch.conf and add dns in the lookup order after the file for the host entry. host files dns