Chapter 2 Overview of NIC Driver Operations

This provides an overview of NDIS miniport NIC drivers. The design goals of a miniport are briefly discussed along with a description of the common functions called by and implemented in such a miniport, as follows:

• Miniport Design Goals in Section 2.1 

• Miniport Driver Structure in Section 2.2 

• Miniport NIC Driver Functions in Section 2.3 

• Miniport NIC Driver Operations in Section 2.4 

In addition to providing a standard interface between each NIC and higher-level protocol drivers, NDIS also includes functions that supply services needed by many different network interface cards. Since a miniport needs only hardware-specific functions, the driver writer can choose to implement those NDIS-defined upper-edge functions that are necessary to accomplish this.