New and Changed Features
This revision of the manual documents the following new features:
•Enabling support for enhanced hardware management
Enhanced hardware management (EHM) allows you to modify hardware attributes, such as the type of LAN device, on either a local or a remote system. See Section 3.2 for more information about how a network device driver uses routines to define and export hardware attributes.
•The unattach( ) routine
The unattach( ) routine stops the network device and frees resources prior to unloading the device driver or powering off the bus to which the device is attached. See Chapter 7 for more information.
Organization
This manual is organized as follows:
Chapter 1 | Describes the sections that make up a |
| network driver and compares them to |
| the sections that are associated with |
| block and character drivers. |
Chapter 2 | Describes the device register offset |
| definitions for the if_el device driver’s |
| associated LAN device, the 3Com 3C5x9 |
| series Ethernet adapter. |
Chapter 3 | Describes how to define a softc data |
| structure, using the if_el device driver’s |
| el_softc structure as an example. |
Chapter 4 | Describes how to implement a |
| configure interface, using the if_el |
| device driver’s el_configure( ) |
| routine as an example. |
Chapter 5 | Describes how to implement a probe |
| interface and associated routines, using |
| the if_el device driver’s el_probe( ) |
| routine as an example. |
Chapter 6 | Describes how to implement an attach |
| interface, using the if_el device driver’s |
| el_attach( ) routine as an example. |
Chapter 7 | Describes how to implement an |
| unattach( ) routine to stop the device. |
About This Manual xiii
