Device Driver Instances

The Solaris kernel allows multiple instances of a driver. Each instance has its own data space but shares the text and some global data with other instances. The device is managed on a per-instance basis and hardened drivers should use a separate instance for each piece of hardware, unless the driver is designed to handle fail-over internally. There can be multiple instances of a driver per slot--for example, multifunction cards--which is standard behavior for Solaris device drivers.