The SunOS 5 Device Driver Interface (DDI/DKI)
The SunOS 5 MT design
For portability and correct operation, each module must adhere to the SunOS DDI/DKI. Several facilities available in previous releases of the SunOS system have changed and can take different arguments, or produce different side effects, or no longer exist in the SunOS 5 system. The module writer should carefully review the module with respect to the DDI/DKI.
Each module that accesses underlying Sun-specific features included in the SunOS 5 system should conform to the Device Driver Interface. The SunOS 5 DDI defines the interface used by the device driver to register device hardware interrupts, access device node properties, map device slave memory, and establish and synchronize memory mappings for DVMA (Direct Virtual Memory Access). These areas are primarily applicable to hardware device drivers. Refer to the Device Driver Interface Specification within the Writing Device Drivers for details on the SunOS 5 DDI and DVMA.
The kernel networking subsystem in the SunOS 5 system is based on STREAMS. Datalink drivers that used the ifnet interface in the SunOS 4 system must be converted to use DLPI for the SunOS 5 system. Refer to the Data Link Provider Interface, Revision 2 specification.
After reviewing the module for conformance to the SunOS 5 DKI and DDI specifications, you should be able to consider the impact of multithreading on the module.