Network Driver Interface Specification

The Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) is an application programming interface (API) for network interface cards (NICs). It was jointly developed by Microsoft and 3Com Corporation, and is mostly used in Microsoft Windows, but the open-source NDISwrapper and Project Evil driver wrapper projects allow many NDIS-compliant NICs to be used with Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD. magnussoft ZETA, a derivative of BeOS, supports a number of NDIS drivers.

The NDIS is a Logical Link Control (LLC) that forms the upper sublayer of the OSI data link layer (layer 2 of 7) and acts as an interface between layer 2 and 3 (the Network Layer). The lower sublayer is the Media Access Control (MAC) device driver.

The NDIS is a library of functions often referred to as a "wrapper" that hides the underlying complexity of the NIC hardware and serves as a standard interface for level 3 network protocol drivers and the hardware level MAC drivers. Another common LLC is the Open Data-Link Interface (ODI).

The NDIS versions supported by various Windows versions are as follows:

• NDIS 2.0: MS-DOS, Windows for Workgroups 3.1, OS/2
• NDIS 3.0: Windows for Workgroups 3.11
• NDIS 3.1: Windows 95
• NDIS 4.0: Windows 95 OSR2, NT 4.0, Windows CE 3.0
• NDIS 5.0: Windows 98, 98 SE, Me, 2000
• NDIS 5.1: Windows XP, Server 2003, Windows CE 4.x , 5.0
• NDIS 5.2: Windows Server 2003 SP2
• NDIS 6.0: Windows Vista
• NDIS 6.1: Windows Vista SP1, Server 2008
• NDIS 6.20: Windows 7, Server 2008 R2

The traffic accepted by the NIC is controlled by an NDIS Miniport Driver while various protocols, such as TCP/IP, are implemented by NDIS Protocol Drivers. A single miniport may be associated with one or more protocols. This means that traffic coming into the miniport may be received in parallel by several protocol drivers. For example, Winpcap adds a second protocol driver on the selected miniport in order to capture incoming packets. Furthermore, it is possible to simulate several virtual NICs by implementing virtual miniport drivers that send and receive traffic from a single physical NIC. One example of virtual miniport drivers usage is to add virtual NICs, each with a different Virtual LAN. Due to the fact that implementations cannot assume that other drivers received the same buffers, one must treat the incoming buffers as read only. A driver that changes the packet content must allocate its own buffers.

Another driver type is NDIS Intermediate Driver. Intermediate drivers sit in-between the MAC and IP layers and can control all traffic being accepted by the NIC card. In practice, intermediate drivers implement both miniport and protocol interfaces. The miniport driver and protocol driver actually communicate with the corresponding protocol and miniport interfaces that reside in the intermediate driver. This design enables adding several chained intermediate drivers between the miniport and protocol drivers. Therefore, driver vendors cannot assume that the interface that they send traffic to is implemented by the last driver in the chain. In order to write applications using NDIS one can use samples that accompany Microsoft's Windows Driver Kit (WDK). The "PassThru" sample is a good starting point for intermediate drivers as it implements all the necessary details required in this driver type, but the sample just passes the traffic through to the next driver in the chain.

See also

• Open Data-Link Interface (ODI)
• Uniform Driver Interface (UDI)
• Universal Network Device Interface (UNDI)
• PC/TCP Packet Driver

External links

• http://blogs.msdn.com/wndp/ Windows Core Networking
• http://www.ndis.com/
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms797120.aspx Microsoft MSDN Design Guide
• http://www.wd-3.com/archive/ExtendingPassthru.htm Extending PassThru

This computer networking article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Microsoft application programming interfaces Computer network stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую Andrew Bree Campos de Piratininga Look at other dictionaries: Network Driver Interface Specification — (NDIS ; en français Spécification de l interface du pilote réseau) est une interface de programmation (API) pour les interfaces réseau. Elle a été développée conjointement par Microsoft et 3Com, et est aujourd hui principalement utilisée par …   Wikipédia en Français Network Driver Interface Specification —    Abbreviated NDIS. A device driver specification, originally developed by Microsoft and 3Com in 1990, that is independent of both the underlying network interface card hardware and the protocol being used. NDIS also allows multiple protocol… …   Dictionary of networking Network Driver Interface Specification — Die Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) ist ein von Microsoft und 3Com entwickelter Standard zur Einbindung von Netzwerkkarten. Er erlaubt den Betrieb von mehreren Karten in einem PC genauso wie den Einsatz mehrerer Protokolle auf einer …   Deutsch Wikipedia Open Data-link Interface/Network Driver Interface Specification Support —    Abbreviated ODINSUP; also written as ODI/NDIS Support. A Novell interface that allows the coexistence of two network driver interfaces:    • Microsoft s NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification)    • Novell s ODI (Open Data link Interface) …   Dictionary of networking Network Driver Interface Specification — …   Википедия network driver interface specification —    (NDIS)    A standard established by Microsoft for writing hardware independent drivers …   IT glossary of terms, acronyms and abbreviations Uniform Driver Interface — The Uniform Driver Interface (UDI) is a project developed by several companies to define a portable interface for device drivers.The Uniform Driver Interface (UDI) allows device drivers to be portable across both hardware platforms and operating… …   Wikipedia Universal Network Device Interface — (UNDI) is an application programming interface (API) for network interface cards (NIC) used by the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) protocol. See also * Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) * Uniform Driver Interface (UDI) * Open Data …   Wikipedia Spécification de l'interface du pilote réseau — Network Driver Interface Specification Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS ; en français Spécification de l interface du pilote réseau) est une interface de programmation (API) pour les interfaces réseau. Elle a été développée… …   Wikipédia en Français Driver — may refer to: Contents 1 Places 2 Surnames of people 2.1 Fiction 3 Occupation and activity 3.1 …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”