authenticating with solaris 9 and 389 directory server

We are trying to switch from a really old iplanet directory server (circa 2002) to a new redhat 389 directory server. I've been able to switch over all of our solaris 10/11 and redhat servers to authenticate against this new ldap but I can't get the solaris 9's to switch. Solaris 9 can connect to the new ldap, and I can su to my own user account from root and I can see my ldap groups with group command. tcpdumps from both old and new ldap look identical except that old ldap contains the encrypted password, and it looks like new ldap doesn't contain any password at all to send back. I built a new vanilla solaris 9 server to test, in case there was any weirdness in the old solaris 9 servers, and I'm seeing the same thing in that as well.

Does anyone have any ideas on what to try to get solaris 9 to authenticate to 389 DS?

I remember having the same problem when I scripted client ldap config a few years back, it only worked on 10 not 9 but I can't remember why (it may have been really tricky with the patch levels required). You should be able to use a guide for OpenLDAP .. it's close enough to make very little difference.