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Writing Device Drivers     Oracle Solaris 11 Information Library
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Preface

Part I Designing Device Drivers for the Oracle Solaris Platform

1.  Overview of Oracle Solaris Device Drivers

2.  Oracle Solaris Kernel and Device Tree

3.  Multithreading

4.  Properties

5.  Managing Events and Queueing Tasks

6.  Driver Autoconfiguration

7.  Device Access: Programmed I/O

8.  Interrupt Handlers

9.  Direct Memory Access (DMA)

10.  Mapping Device and Kernel Memory

11.  Device Context Management

12.  Power Management

13.  Hardening Oracle Solaris Drivers

14.  Layered Driver Interface (LDI)

Part II Designing Specific Kinds of Device Drivers

15.  Drivers for Character Devices

16.  Drivers for Block Devices

17.  SCSI Target Drivers

18.  SCSI Host Bus Adapter Drivers

19.  Drivers for Network Devices

20.  USB Drivers

21.  SR-IOV Drivers

Part III Building a Device Driver

22.  Compiling, Loading, Packaging, and Testing Drivers

23.  Debugging, Testing, and Tuning Device Drivers

24.  Recommended Coding Practices

Part IV Appendixes

A.  Hardware Overview

B.  Summary of Oracle Solaris DDI/DKI Services

C.  Making a Device Driver 64-Bit Ready

D.  Console Frame Buffer Drivers

E.  pci.conf File

Index

Preface

Writing Device Drivers provides information on developing drivers for character-oriented devices, block-oriented devices, network devices, SCSI target and HBA devices, and USB devices for the Oracle Solaris Operating System (Oracle Solaris OS). This book discusses how to develop multithreaded reentrant device drivers for all architectures that conform to the Oracle Solaris OS DDI/DKI (Device Driver Interface, Driver-Kernel Interface). A common driver programming approach is described that enables drivers to be written without concern for platform-specific issues such as endianness and data ordering.

Additional topics include hardening Oracle Solaris drivers; power management; driver autoconfiguration; programmed I/O; Direct Memory Access (DMA); device context management; compilation, installation, and testing drivers; debugging drivers; and porting Oracle Solaris drivers to a 64-bit environment.


Note - This Oracle Solaris release supports systems that use the SPARC and x86 families of processor architectures. The supported systems appear in the Oracle Solaris OS: Hardware Compatibility Lists. This document cites any implementation differences between the platform types.

In this document, these x86 related terms mean the following:

For supported systems, see the Oracle Solaris OS: Hardware Compatibility Lists.


Who Should Use This Book

This book is written for UNIX programmers who are familiar with UNIX device drivers. Overview information is provided, but the book is not intended to serve as a general tutorial on device drivers.


Note - The Oracle Solaris operating system (Oracle Solaris OS) runs on both SPARC and x86 architectures. The Oracle Solaris OS also runs on both 64-bit and 32-bit address spaces. The information in this document applies to all platforms and address spaces unless specifically noted.


How This Book Is Organized

This book is organized into the following chapters:

Related Books and Papers

For detailed reference information about the device driver interfaces, see the section 9 man pages. Section 9E, Intro(9E), describes DDI/DKI (Device Driver Interface, Driver-Kernel Interface) driver entry points. Section 9F, Intro(9F), describes DDI/DKI kernel functions. Sections 9P and 9S, Intro(9S), describe DDI/DKI properties and data structures.

For information on hardware and other driver-related issues, see the following books:

The following book might also be useful:

Access to Oracle Support

Oracle customers have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic conventions that are used in this book.

Table P-1 Typographic Conventions

Typeface
Description
Example
AaBbCc123
The names of commands, files, and directories, and onscreen computer output
Edit your .login file.

Use ls -a to list all files.

machine_name% you have mail.

AaBbCc123
What you type, contrasted with onscreen computer output
machine_name% su

Password:

aabbcc123
Placeholder: replace with a real name or value
The command to remove a file is rm filename.
AaBbCc123
Book titles, new terms, and terms to be emphasized
Read Chapter 6 in the User's Guide.

A cache is a copy that is stored locally.

Do not save the file.

Note: Some emphasized items appear bold online.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default UNIX system prompt and superuser prompt for shells that are included in the Oracle Solaris OS. Note that the default system prompt that is displayed in command examples varies, depending on the Oracle Solaris release.

Table P-2 Shell Prompts

Shell
Prompt
Bash shell, Korn shell, and Bourne shell
$
Bash shell, Korn shell, and Bourne shell for superuser
#
C shell
machine_name%
C shell for superuser
machine_name#