Solaris[tm] 9 Operating Environment 4/03
Description and What's New

The Solaris 9 4/03 Operating Environment builds on the success of the Solaris 9 OE. Enhancements in the areas of scalability, availability, manageability and security define the industry leading UNIX(TM) operating environment. This Solaris 9 update integrates fixes, performance improvements as well as select new technologies in a tested easy-to-install configuration, while maintaining guaranteed binary compatibility with prior Solaris releases. Our commitment to compatibility ensures the highest level of investment protection for our customers.

• Guided Tour
• Datasheet
• Solaris Operating Environment - Family Comparison Chart

Key Features

• Solaris Volume Manager enhancements for 64-bit systems with large volume support and Reconfiguration Coordination Manager (RCM) support.

  Multi-terabyte support provides the ability to use disks greater than 1 Tbyte in size. The UFS file system is also compatible with the EFI disk label, and support for file systems system greater than 1 Tbyte will appear in a future release of Solaris. Reconfiguration Coordination Manager (RCM) support adds to Solaris Volume Manager the ability to respond appropriately to dynamic reconfiguration (DR) requests. This addition ensures that removal of devices under Solaris Volume Manager control is blocked with an appropriate warning until the devices are no longer in use.

• Solaris Flash differential Archives and Configuration Scripts

  Enables use of a single reference installation of the Solaris operating environment on a system, which is called the master system. Then, replication of that installation can occur on a number of systems, which are called clone systems. The installation is an initial Solaris Flash installation that overwrites all files on the clone system.

• Netscape 7.0 for Solaris

  The latest, major browser release by Netscape Corp. with: Fast and efficient web browsing tools; fully customized integrated search capabilities; integrated mail and instant messaging enhancements; and privacy that is more secure.

• Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) 6to4 Router and CDE enhancements for IPv6

  The 6to4 Router is a mechanism for IPv6 sites to communicate with each other over an IPv4 network without explicit tunnel setup, and for them to communicate with other native IPv6 domains via relay routers. Also, CDE applications have been enhanced to support IPv6.

• IKE Hardware Acceleration

  Internet Key Exchange (IKE) is the digital certificate exchange and negotiation part of the IPsec/IKE suite for encryption/authentication of network packets. IKE algorithms are computationally expensive, particularly in the Phase 1 exchange. Systems that handle a large number of exchanges can use a Sun Crypto Accelerator 1000 card to handle the public key operations.

• Indic script support in Unicode locales

  Unicode locales in Solaris are capable of supporting scripts of various languages. This features adds 7 additional Indian regional scripts to compliment the Hindi support (named devanagari) already included in Solaris 9 FCS.

• Wubi Input Method Support in Simplified and Traditional Chinese in Solaris

  Wubi is the most popular glyph encoding input method in China. Its primary advantage is rapid keyboard input of Chinese characters. The Wubi input method (IM) is widely used in China. The encoding rule for Wubi IM is based on the radical or stroke shape of Chinese characters.

• Additional global keyboard support

  Software support for three additional keyboards has been added to the Solaris 9 4/03 Update release: Estonian keyboard Type 6, French Canadian keyboard Type 6, and Polish programmer's keyboard Type 5.

• FreeType 2.1.x

  FreeType 2.1.x is an open source library that provides a simple application programming interface (API) to access font content in a uniform way, independently of the file format. Additionally, some format-specific APIs can be used to access special data in the font file.

• Command Line Interface enhancements to the Solaris Product Registry

  The prodreg command has been updated to include functionality that is similar to the Solaris Product Registry graphical user interface. This feature saves time for system administrators and the results can be scripted when they are done.

• Memory allocation with libumem: A Userland Slab Allocator

  Tlibumem is a user-mode (non-kernel mode) memory allocator library. The libumem project delivers fast, scalable memory allocation to user-level applications, in the form of a standard shared library. libumem has features that enable you to debug memory leaks and other aberrations that involve memory usage.

• XEvIE - X Event Interception Extension

  This low level extension allows software to intercept all keyboard and mouse events so they can be read, consumed, or modified as needed.

• Stack Check APIs

  Stack Check APIs allow for advanced interaction with stack-checking compiler support. Stack-checking compiler support is available in Sun ONE Studio 7.0.