What Is a Device Driver Entry Point?

An entry point is a function within a device driver that can be called by an external entity to get access to some driver functionality or to operate a device. Each device driver provides a standard set of functions as entry points. For the complete list of entry points for all driver types, see the Intro(9E) man page. The Solaris kernel uses entry points for these general task areas:

• Loading and unloading the driver

• Autoconfiguring the device – Autoconfiguration is the process of loading a device driver's code and static data into memory so that the driver is registered with the system.

• Providing I/O services for the driver

Drivers for different types of devices have different sets of entry points according to the kinds of operations the devices perform. A driver for a memory-mapped character-oriented device, for example, supports a devmap(9E) entry point, while a block driver does not support this entry.

Use a prefix based on the name of your driver to give driver functions unique names. Typically, this prefix is the name of the driver, such as xx_open() for the open(9E) routine of driver xx. See Use a Unique Prefix to Avoid Kernel Symbol Collisions for more information. In subsequent examples in this book, xx is used as the driver prefix.