Writing Device Drivers for the Solaris Operating Environment (SI-375)

Who Can Benefit

Students who can benefit from this course are UNIX programmers who need to write device drivers in the Solaris OE.

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Prerequisites

To succeed fully in this course, students should be able to:

• Write correct C programs and evaluate a=(int(*)())b
• Use the C, Bourne, or Korn shell
• Navigate the Solaris OE file system
• Edit text files using vi or the OpenWindows or Common Desktop Environment (CDE) text editors
• Enumerate the basic functions of the operating system
• Define the use of the file, vnode, and inode structures in the system
• Use the Solaris OE or UNIX system calls, particularly the I/O calls
• Enumerate the differences between a system call and a library call
• Use the Solaris OE development tools, such as make and cc

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Skills Gained

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

• Explain the purpose of the Device Driver Interface/Driver-Kernel Interface (DDI/DKI)
• Determine how many devices can be connected to a SCSI-1, SCSI-2, and SCSI-3 bus
• List the structures and system calls used in Streams
• Understand different dynamic reconfiguration scenarios
• Describe the architecture of the Solaris OE Power Management framework and its role in dynamic reconfiguration
• Compile kernel code

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Course Content

Module 1 - Hardware Overview

• Explain how multiprocessor architectures differ
• Describe the impact of the processor, memory model, and bus differences on the operating system
• Describe the different logical address spaces used on a workstation running the Solaris OE and how they relate to the physical address space
• Describe how the memory management unit translates addresses
• Explain how I/O cache, burst transfers, and DMA work

Module 2 - The Solaris OE Kernel and Device Tree

• Explain the difference between kernel and user address spaces
• Explain the purpose of the Device Driver Interface/Driver-Kernel Interface (DDI/DKI)
• Describe the creation and role of the device tree in the kernel for the Solaris OE

Module 3 - Overview of the Solaris OE Device Drivers

• Describe how system calls invoke driver functions
• List the system structures that drivers use to define their entry points
• Explain how these system structures interconnect, and which structures can be examined by the driver
• Describe the difference between a character device and a block device
• Describe the differences between memory mapped, DMA, and programmed I/O devices

Module 4 - Multithreading

• Explain how the multithreaded environment is used to protect data
• Explain what is needed to enable a thread to wait for an event
• Describe two synchronization objects supported by the Solaris OE

Module 5 - Properties

• Understand the concept and handling of device properties
• Describe the routines that are used to dynamically change properties
• Describe the device driver function that handles properties

Module 6 - Debugging

• Describe how to prepare a system for debugging
• List the tools and commands used to debug kernel code in the Solaris OE
• Describe basic ways of debugging device drivers

Module 7 - Autoconfiguration

• Explain the purpose of the hardware configuration file
• List the structures used to make a driver loadable, and understand how to initialize these structures
• Explain the purpose of the _init(9E), _info(9E), and _fini(9E) routines
• Describe the device driver autoconfiguration routines
• List the entry points for device configuration
• Describe how to compile and load a loadable driver

Module 8 - Device Programmed I/O

• Understand how to map device registers for device-independent access
• Understand and handle basic side effects and constraints of programmed I/O (PIO)
• Describe the issues that must be addressed to ensure driver portability

Module 9 - Interrupts

• Describe how the interrupt routine operates
• Describe priority inheritance and how it affects critical sections of non-interrupt code
• Describe the interrupt levels and describe how they are processed
• Understand the significance of interrupt levels under the Solaris OE architecture
• Describe the top and bottom halves of a driver and describe how they are synchronized

Module 10 - Direct Memory Access

• Name the three types of DMA
• Describe the main features of the DDI DMA model
• Describe the DMA data structure used by the driver
• Name the three software components of the DMA model
• Explain how system resources are allocated for DMA
• Describe a DMA Window

Module 11 - Block Drivers

• Describe the routines composing a block driver and indicate where they are initialized
• Describe the key data structure in a block driver
• Describe how to check user credentials
• Describe how transfer parameters are passed to a block driver
• Explain the purpose of the xxstrategy() routine
• Describe the use of buffer mapping routines

Module 12 - Character Drivers

• Describe the routines common to both character drivers and block drivers, and identify which are unique to character drivers
• Describe the data structure passed to the xxread() and xxwrite() routines
• Explain how a character driver can use the physio(9F) routine, and why you would use the physio() routine
• Explain the purpose of the xxioctl() routine
• Describe the function used for segment mapping
• Explain the purpose of the xxchpoll() routine

Module 13 - SCSI Target Drivers

• Determine how many devices you can connect to a SCSI-1, SCSI-2 and SCSI-3 bus
• Describe how the target driver communicates with the target device
• Determine what functions a driver uses to communicate with the host adapter driver
• Describe how the host adapter returns the result of a transfer request to the target driver

Module 14 - SCSI Host Bus Adapter (HBA) Drivers

• Describe the HBA Transport Layer
• Describe how a driver stores target HBA data in the tran_hba_private field
• Describe how you detach an HBA driver
• Name the routine that is used to create a SCSI packet
• List the routines that are used to handle SCSA command transport and command completion

Module 15 - STREAMS

• List the structures used in STREAMS
• Explain queue bands
• Describe the transparent ioctl(2) mechanism
• Describe the interfaces to the STREAMS module and driver routines
• Explain how to install a STREAMS module
• List the new STREAMS system calls and support routines
• Understand the concept of perimeters and STREAMS multithreading and concurrency

Module 16 - Hot-Plugging or Dynamic Reconfiguration

• Describe different dynamic reconfiguration scenarios
• Describe the architecture of the Solaris OE Power Management framework and its role in dynamic reconfiguration
• Describe how to convert a Solaris OE device driver to support dynamic reconfiguration
• Describe the additional commands that have been added to the attach(9E) and detach(9E) routines
• Describe the additions that should be made to a Data Link Provider Interface (DLPI) driver
• Describe the additional functions that are provided for HBA hot-plugging

Module 17 - Compiling, Loading, Packaging, and Testing Drivers

• Compile kernel code
• Describe how to manually install and load a device driver module
• List the commands used to package an application in the Solaris OE
• Describe the package creation process
• Describe basic ways of testing device drivers

Module 18 - Making a Device Driver 64-Bit Ready

• Describe the three objectives for porting a driver to a 64-bit Solaris OE
• Understand general and driver-specific 64-bit issues

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