dlpi(7P)
NAME
dlpi - Data Link Provider Interface
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/dlpi.h>
DESCRIPTION
SunOS STREAMS-based device drivers wishing to support the
STREAMS TCP/IP and other STREAMS-based networking protocol
suite implementations support Version 2 of the Data Link
Provider Interface ("DLPI"). DLPI V2 enables a data link
service user to access and use any of a variety of conform-
ing data link service providers without special knowledge of
the provider's protocol. Specifically, the interface is
intended to support Ethernet, X.25 LAPB, SDLC, ISDN LAPD,
CSMA/CD, FDDI, token ring, token bus, Bisync, and other
datalink-level protocols.
The interface specifies access to the data link service pro-
vider in the form of M_PROTO and M_PCPROTO type STREAMS
messages and does not define a specific protocol implementa-
tion. The interface defines the syntax and semantics of
primitives exchanged between the data link user and the data
link provider to attach a physical device with physical-
level address to a stream, bind a datalink-level address to
the stream, get implementation-specific information from the
data link provider, exchange data with a peer data link user
in one of three communication modes (connection, connection-
less, acknowledged connectionless), enable/disable multicast
group and promiscuous mode reception of datalink frames, get
and set the physical address associated with a stream, and
several other operations.
For details on this interface refer to the <sys/dlpi.h>
header. For free access to the STREAMS DLPI Specification
visit The Open Group website at
www.opengroup.org/pubs/catalog/c811.htm.
FILES
Files in or under /dev.
SEE ALSO
le(7D), hme(7D), ge(7D), qfe(7D), gld(7D)
NOTES
Streams drivers for network interface cards (NIC) must meet
the following driver name constraints:
o Length - Name cannot exceed 16 characters. Names con-
taining three to eight characters are preferred.
o Legal Characters - Legal characters are: alphanumeric
(a-z, A-Z, 0-9), and the underscore ('_'). Addition-
ally, the first and/or last character of a name cannot
be a digit.
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