dlpi(7) 						 Miscellaneous Information Manual						   dlpi(7)

NAME

       dlpi - data link provider interface

DESCRIPTION

       This  manual  page gives a brief description on DLPI (the data link provider interface) and how to interface with the set of API's that are
       provided by DLPI.

       HP-UX DLPI serves as a Layer 2 (Data Link Layer) of an OSI architecture.  DLPI serves as an interface between LAN device drivers  and  DLPI
       users.  DLPI is intended for use by experienced network users only.

       HP-UX  DLPI  has  two  broader sets of interface.  The first set of interfaces are provided as per the DLPI 2.0 standard and the second set
       that are HP extensions to the standard.

       HP-UX DLPI also provides interfaces to device drivers to interface with STREAMS modules and DLPI applications.

   For STREAMS Modules and DLPI Applications
       Hewlett-Packard's implementation of DLPI is a Style 2 service provider.	The Style 2 provider requires a DLS user to identify a PPA explic-
       itly, using a special attach service primitive.	Refer to the lan(7) manual page for more information on PPA.

       HP DLPI offers the following services to STREAMS modules and DLPI applications:

	      o  Clone (maximum of 3992) and non-clone (maximum of 100) access.

	      o  Support for Ethernet/IEEE802.3, FDDI and Token Ring interfaces.

	      o  Support  for  connectionless  and  connection-mode services (connection-mode services are supported only over IEEE802.3 and Token
		 Ring).

	      o  Supports raw-mode services.

	      o  ioctl is supported for doing device-specific control and diagnostic requests.

	      o  Support for third-party device drivers.

	      o  Support for all levels of promiscuous mode.

       HP DLPI does not offer the following for STREAMS modules and DLPI applications:

	      o  Quality of Service (QOS) management.

	      o  Connection Management STREAMS: and over connection-oriented STREAMS.

	      o  Acknowledged connectionless-mode services.

       The DLPI requests based on DLPI 2.0 standard are defined in see dlpi(4).  HP extensions for DLPI are defined in see dlpi_ext(4).

   Device File Format
       To access LAN drivers via DLPI interface, DLS users must use the following device files:

	      Name	   Type       Major #	  Minor #      Access Type
	      ----	   ----       -------	  -------      -----------
	      /dev/dlpi     c		72	   0x77        Clone access
	      /dev/dlpiX    c		119	   0xX	       Non-Clone access

   For Device Drivers
       HP-UX DLPI is of non-native design.  The drivers and DLPI are not coupled together and exists as individual components on the system.   The
       non-native DLPI supports two kinds of drivers.  Tightly coupled and loosely coupled drivers.

       DLPI  provides interfaces to tightly coupled and loosely coupled drivers.  DLPI serves as a sole interface to DLS users for tightly coupled
       drivers.  Whereas, a loosely coupled driver depends on DLPI only to provide information to user-space commands  lanscan(1M)  and  nwmgr(1M)
       for display purposes.

       The interfaces for device drivers is defined in see dlpi_drv(4).

       DLPI provides the following functionality for tightly coupled drivers:

	      o  Infrastructure that allows drivers to communicate with upper layer STREAMS modules or applications.

	      o  Infrastructure for protocol, multicast and promiscuous processing.

	      o  Infrastructure for asynchronous processing of control.

	      o  Inbound frame processing.

	      o  Processing link up and down events.

	      o  Repository for all registered interfaces and associated information.

	      o  Outbound processing before hand off to physical drivers.

       DLPI  provides  its services through three header files that are exported.  The header files and are for user space applications and kernel
       level STREAMS modules.  The header file is for physical and logical drivers.

WARNINGS

       Various implementations of DLPI exists within HP-UX for special technologies like ATM, Hyper Fabric, etc.; but the DLPI that  supports  LAN
       class drivers (tightly coupled) is the one covered by this manual page.

       The  and  commands are deprecated.  These commands will be removed in a future HP-UX release.  HP recommends the use of replacement command
       nwmgr(1M) to perform all network interface-related tasks.

AUTHOR

       was developed by HP, based on DLPI 2.0 standard.

SEE ALSO

       lanscan(1M), nwmgr(1M), dlpi(4), dlpi_drv(4), dlpi_ext(4), lan(7).

																	   dlpi(7)