Solaris Hotplugging Driver Issues

This section describes the flow of control from a device driver perspective. Most device drivers can support hotplugging with minimal changes.

Hot Removal

The kernel checks the driver state, and if the driver instance is not open, the kernel can invoke the driver's detach(9E) entry point with the command DDI_DETACH. The driver instance checks its internal state and verifies whether it is safe to detach. If so, the driver frees resources, cancels timeouts, and returns success. At this point, the kernel can remove power from the slot and the hardware can be removed.

Hot Insertion

Hot insertion uses the normal probe(9E) and attach(9E) entry points of a driver after the hardware has been inserted into the slot in a controlled manner.