This appendix provides answers to frequently asked questions
(FAQs).
A source of information on STREAMS performance is the paper "The BSD
Packet Filter: A New Architecture for User-level Packet Capture" by McCanne
& Van Jacobson in the 1993 Winter USENIX proceedings (also available as ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/papers/bpf-usenix93.ps.Z). It includes detailed
NIT vs. in-kernel BPF performance measurements and some explanation of results
obtained.
| What are the rules for naming a Network Interface Card
(NIC) device driver? | Naming of the NIC device driver
has the following constraints:
The name can contain alphanumeric and underscore (_) characters
only
The first and last characters of the name cannot be a number
The name length cannot exceed 16 characters. The recommended
length is 3-8 characters
|
| Do Solaris operating environment Ethernet
drivers support Data Link Provider
Interfaces (DLPI)? | Yes. The Solaris operating
environment Ethernet le(7D) drivers support Data Link Provider Interfaces
(DLPI).
|
| Is there documentation that describes the interface between
IP and network drivers, namely, the Sun-specific requirements not outlined
in the DLPI Version 2 specification? | IP is a STREAMS
module in the Solaris operating environment. Any module or driver interface
with IP should follow the STREAMS mechanism. There are no specific requirements
for the interface between IP and network drivers.
|
| When an ifconfig device0 plumb is issued,
the driver immediately receives a DL_INFO_REQ. Exactly
what is required in the DL_INFO_ACK from a DLPI Style 2
provider? | Look at the dl_info_ack_t
struct in /usr/include/sys/dlpi.h.
|
| Can a driver be a clone driver and
also a DLPI Style 2 provider? If so, how do I map the minor number selected
in the open routine to an instance prior to a DL_ATTACH_REQ?
The technique of using the minor number to obtain the instance in the getinfo routine is not valid prior to the DL_ATTACH_REQ. | Yes, it is possible for the driver to be
a CLONE driver and also a DLPI Style 2 provider. The DL_ATTACH_REQ request assigns a physical point of attachment (PPA)
to a stream. The DL_ATTACH_REQ request can be issued any
time after a file or stream being opened. The DL_ATTACH_REQ
request does not have anything to do with assigning, retrieving or mapping
minor/instance number. Of course, you can issue a DL_ATTACH_REQ request for a file or stream with desired major/minor number.
As for the question of mapping minor number to instance, usually the minor
number (getminor(9F))
is the instance number.
|
| In the examples, a minor node is created each time the
driver's attach routine is called. How would a clone driver
attach to multiple boards; that is, have multiple instances, and still only
create one minor node? | For the clone
driver, this might not be possible. A non-clone driver,
it can use the bits information in a particular minor number, for example FF, to map all other minor nodes.
|
| Do Solaris 2.1 Ethernet drivers support LLI 2.0 interfaces? | Do you mean DLPI (Data Link Provider interfaces) ?
The Solaris 2.1 ethernet drivers, le and ie.
both support DLPI. See the le(7D) man page.
|
| Does Solaris 2.1 DLPI provide both connection-oriented
services and connectionless services? Also, is your DLPI Version 2.0, which
includes multicast facilities? | Yes and yes. Please see
the dlpi(7P)
man page. TCP and IP are STREAMS modules in the Solaris operating environment.
The command strconf < /dev/tcp lists all the modules.
STREAMS is not supported in SunOS 4 system TCP/IP.
|
| Is multicasting supported on SunOS 4? If not, how can
the customer obtain this feature? | IP multicast is a
standard supported feature in the Solaris operating environment, but it is
not supported in the SunOS 4 environment. If customers want to run an unsupported
IP multicast on their SunOS 4 machines, it is available via anonymous FTP
from gregorio.stanford.edu in the file vmtp-ip/ipmulti-sunos41x.tar.Z.
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