An application opens a STREAMS device, which creates the stream head to access the device driver. The stream head packages the data from the user process into STREAMS messages, and passes it downstream into kernel space. One or more cooperating modules can be pushed on a stream between the stream head and driver to customize the stream and perform any of a range of tasks on the data before passing it on. On the other hand, a stream might consist solely of the stream head and driver, with no module at all.