Chapter 13

Hardening Solaris Drivers

Fault Management Architecture (FMA) I/O Fault Services enable driver developers to integrate fault management capabilities into I/O device drivers. The Solaris I/O fault services framework defines a set of interfaces that enable all drivers to coordinate and perform basic error handling tasks and activities. The Solaris FMA as a whole provides for error handling and fault diagnosis, in addition to response and recovery. FMA is a component of Sun's Predictive Self-Healing strategy.

A driver is considered hardened when it uses the defensive programming practices described in this document in addition to the I/O fault services framework for error handling and diagnosis. The driver hardening test harness tests that the I/O fault services and defensive programming requirements have been correctly fulfilled.

This document contains the following sections:

• Sun Fault Management Architecture I/O Fault Services provides a reference for driver developers who want to integrate fault management capabilities into I/O device drivers.

• Defensive Programming Techniques for Solaris Device Drivers provides general information about how to defensively write a Solaris device driver.

• Driver Hardening Test Harness is a driver development tool that injects simulated hardware faults when the driver under development accesses its hardware.