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    Chapter 2. Understanding Device Drivers: 2.2 Classification of Drivers According To Functionality

    Uploaded by

    Jeffer Mwangi
    This chapter provides an introduction to device drivers and their structure. It describes device drivers as software that provides an interface between the operating system and hardware devices. It classifies drivers into three main types: monolithic drivers which implement all functionality for a device; layered drivers which are part of a stack processing I/O requests, such as encryption filters; and miniport drivers which are add-ons to class drivers and implement device-specific functionality while the class driver handles common functions.

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    Chapter 2. Understanding Device Drivers: 2.2 Classification of Drivers According To Functionality

    Uploaded by

    Jeffer Mwangi
    127 views4 pages
    This chapter provides an introduction to device drivers and their structure. It describes device drivers as software that provides an interface between the operating system and hardware devices. It classifies drivers into three main types: monolithic drivers which implement all functionality for a device; layered drivers which are part of a stack processing I/O requests, such as encryption filters; and miniport drivers which are add-ons to class drivers and implement device-specific functionality while the class driver handles common functions.

    Original Description:

    Drivers for Computer

    Original Title

    Device Drivers

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    © © All Rights Reserved

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    This chapter provides an introduction to device drivers and their structure. It describes device drivers as software that provides an interface between the operating system and hardware devices. It classifies drivers into three main types: monolithic drivers which implement all functionality for a device; layered drivers which are part of a stack processing I/O requests, such as encryption filters; and miniport drivers which are add-ons to class drivers and implement device-specific functionality while the class driver handles common functions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    127 views4 pages

    Chapter 2. Understanding Device Drivers: 2.2 Classification of Drivers According To Functionality

    Uploaded by

    Jeffer Mwangi
    This chapter provides an introduction to device drivers and their structure. It describes device drivers as software that provides an interface between the operating system and hardware devices. It classifies drivers into three main types: monolithic drivers which implement all functionality for a device; layered drivers which are part of a stack processing I/O requests, such as encryption filters; and miniport drivers which are add-ons to class drivers and implement device-specific functionality while the class driver handles common functions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    Chapter 2.

    Understanding Device Drivers


    This chapter provides you with a general introduction to device drivers and takes you through the
    structural elements of a device driver.

    2.1 Device Driver Overview


    Device drivers are the software segments that provide an interface between the operating system
    and the specific hardware devices such as terminals, disks, tape drives, video cards and network
    media. The device driver brings the device into and out of service, sets hardware parameters in
    the device, transmits data from the kernel to the device, receives data from the device and passes
    it back to the kernel, and handles device errors.

    A driver acts like a translator between the device and programs that use the device. Each device
    has its own set of specialized commands that only its driver knows. In contrast, most programs
    access devices by using generic commands. The driver, therefore, accepts generic commands
    from a program and then translates them into specialized commands for the device.

    2.2 Classification of Drivers According to


    Functionality
    There are numerous driver types, differing in their functionality. This subsection briefly
    describes three of the most common driver types.

    2.2.1 Monolithic Drivers


    Monolithic drivers are device drivers that embody all the functionality needed to support a
    hardware device. A monolithic driver is accessed by one or more user applications, and directly
    drives a hardware device. The driver communicates with the application through I/O control
    commands (IOCTLs) and drives the hardware using calls to the different WDK, ETK, DDI/DKI
    functions.

    Figure 2.1 Monolithic Drivers


    Monolithic drivers are supported in all operating systems including all Windows platforms and
    all Unix platforms.

    2.2.2 Layered Drivers


    Layered drivers are device drivers that are part of a stack of device drivers that together process
    an I/O request. An example of a layered driver is a driver that intercepts calls to the disk and
    encrypts/decrypts all data being transferred to/from the disk. In this example, a driver would be
    hooked on to the top of the existing driver and would only do the encryption/decryption.

    Layered drivers are sometimes also known as filter drivers, and are supported in all operating
    systems including all Windows platforms and all Unix platforms.

    Figure 2.2 Layered Drivers


    2.2.3 Miniport Drivers
    A Miniport driver is an add-on to a class driver that supports miniport drivers. It is used so the
    miniport driver does not have to implement all of the functions required of a driver for that class.
    The class driver provides the basic class functionality for the miniport driver.
    A class driver is a driver that supports a group of devices of common functionality, such as all
    HID devices or all network devices.

    Miniport drivers are also called miniclass drivers or minidrivers, and are supported in the
    Windows NT (2000) family, namely Windows 7 / Vista / Server 2008 / Server 2003 / XP / 2000 /
    NT 4.0.

    Figure 2.3 Miniport Drivers


    Windows 7/Vista/Server 2008/Server 2003/XP/2000/NT 4.0 provide several driver classes
    (called ports) that handle the common functionality of their class. It is then up to the user to add
    only the functionality that has to do with the inner workings of the specific hardware. The NDIS
    miniport driver is one example of such a driver. The NDIS miniport framework is used to create
    network drivers that hook up to NT's communication stacks and is therefore accessible to
    common communication calls used by applications. The Windows NT kernel provides drivers
    for the various communication stacks and other code that is common to communication cards.
    Due to the NDIS framework, the network card developer does not have to write all of this code,
    only the code that is specific to the network card he is developing.

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