A.2.3.1 General

As Chapter 13 describes, all interactions between transport drivers and a NIC driver use the NDIS interface library. Library functions accept transport driver requests and NIC driver event indications. They also call NIC driver upper-edge functions, transport driver lower-edge functions, or operating system functions to satisfy the driver requests.

For maximum performance, Windows NT provides the NDIS interface library as a set of inline macros instead of actual functions to ensure compatibility and interoperability among NDIS 3.0 drivers. Transport and NIC drivers use simple function calls for requests they cannot implement through macros.

Windows NT furnishes NDIS interface library functions as a DLL. Both transport and NIC drivers link to this DLL. Interface library functions are:

• Functions called by the NIC driver.

• Functions called by a transport driver.

• Buffer, packet, and pool functions.

• Memory functions.

• File management functions.

• Timer functions.

• Interrupt handling functions.

• Configuration functions.

• Send flag functions.

• Spin lock functions.

• Interlocked functions.

• Noninterlocked list manipulation functions.

• DMA-related functions.

The following sections detail the NDIS interface library functions. These functions come directly from the NDIS interface library and not the NIC driver. Windows NT provides and supports all NDIS interface library functions.