Basic Driver

A device driver is a loadable kernel module that translates between an I/O device and the kernel to operate the device.

Device drivers can also be software-only, implementing a pseudo-device such as RAM disk or a pseudo-terminal that only exists in software.

In the Solaris operating environment, the interface between the kernel and device drivers is called the Device Driver Interface (DDI/DKI). This interface is specified in the Section 9E manual pages that specify the driver entry points. Section 9 also details the kernel data structures (9S) and utility functions (9F) available to drivers.

The DDI protects the kernel from device specifics. Application programs and the rest of the kernel need little (if any) device-specific code to use the device. The DDI makes the system more portable and easier to maintain.

There are three basic types of device drivers corresponding to the three basic types of devices. Character devices handle data serially and transfer data to and from the processor one character at a time, the same as keyboards and low performance printers. Serial block devices and drivers also handle data serially, but transfer data to and from memory without processor intervention, the same as tape drives. Direct access block devices and drivers also transfer data without processor intervention and blocks of storage on the device can be addressed directly, the same as disk drives.

There are two types of character device drivers: standard character device drivers and STREAMS device drivers. STREAMS is a separate programming model for writing a character driver. Devices that receive data asynchronously (such as terminal and network devices) are suited to a STREAMS implementation.

STREAMS drivers share some kinds of processing with STREAMS modules. Important differences between drivers and modules include how the application manipulates drivers and modules and how interrupts are handled. In STREAMS, drivers are opened and modules are pushed. A device driver has an interrupt routine to process hardware interrupts.