Drivers for Network Devices

Solaris network drivers are STREAMS-based. These types of drivers are covered in depth in the STREAMS Programming Guide. This chapter discusses the Generic LAN driver (GLD), which is a kernel module encapsulating features common to most network drivers. The GLD implements much of the STREAMS and Data Link Provider Interface (DLPI) functionality for a Solaris network driver.

The GLD module is available for Solaris network drivers for the SPARC platform and for both 32-bit and 64-bit x86 platforms.

This chapter provides information on the following subjects:

• Generic LAN Driver Overview

• Declarations and Data Structures

• GLD Arguments

• GLD Entry Points

• GLD Service Routines

For more information on GLDs, see the gld(7D), dlpi(7P), gld(9E), gld(9F), gld_mac_info(9S), and gld_stats(9S) man pages.