If you have build 62 or later
nwamd is a system daemon to manage network interfaces. This daemon is started automatically and should not be invoked directly. It does not constitute a programming interface.
Whether this daemon is enabled or not depends on your installation medium. To check, enter the following at the command line:
% svcs svc:/network/physical
The two instances will be listed: one as disabled, the other as online. If the nwam instance is online then this daemon will be running. The two instances correspond to the two modes of network configuration: the default instance is for manual mode, while the nwam instance is for auto-magic mode.
To go from manual mode to auto-magic mode:
% svcadm disable svc:/network/physical:default
% svcadm enable svc:/network/physical:nwam
To go from auto-magic mode to manual mode:
% svcadm disable svc:/network/physical:nwam
% svcadm enable svc:/network/physical:default
Warning: when switching modes like this, all network interfaces will be brought down then back up, thus if a different IP address is configured in this process, existing applications and sessions may be disrupted.
Note that in auto-magic mode, there is a limitation that only one link is active at a time. This mode is thus not recommended for machines which use more than one link at once. For machines with wired and wireless links, wired is preferred by default, although this can be adjusted by altering the order of the lines in the plain text file /etc/nwam/llp. Note, however, that this interface is Volatile and may change in a future release.
For the old build
This is just for a reference, no test has been done:
The easiest way is to do a Solaris Express Developer Edition install.
It does that automatically by default.
The next easiest way is to specify that you want to use DHCP when
asked during a regular install.
The next possible way is to use "sys-unconfig" to return the system
back to the just-installed state, and answer the questions it asks on
reboot.
Finally, for the hard way, you can do something like this:
# echo > /etc/hostname.XXX
# touch /etc/dhcp.XXX
... replacing "XXX" with the name of the Ethernet interface of
interest. If the problem is that you don't know the name of the
Ethernet interface, then try doing "ifconfig -a plumb ; ifconfig -a".