Intro(7) Device and Network Interfaces Intro(7)
NAME
Intro, intro - introduction to special files
DESCRIPTION
This section describes various device and network interfaces available on the system. The types of interfaces described include charac-
ter and block devices, STREAMS modules, network protocols, file systems, and ioctl requests for driver subsystems and classes.
This section contains the following major collections:(7D) The system provides drivers for a variety of hardware devices, such as disk, magnetic tapes, serial communication lines, mice, and
frame buffers, as well as virtual devices such as pseudo-terminals and windows.
This section describes special files that refer to specific hardware peripherals and device drivers. STREAMS device drivers are
also described. Characteristics of both the hardware device and the corresponding device driver are discussed where applicable.
An application accesses a device through that device's special file. This section specifies the device special file to be used to
access the device as well as application programming interface (API) information relevant to the use of the device driver.
All device special files are located under the /devices directory. The /devices directory hierarchy attempts to mirror the
hierarchy of system busses, controllers, and devices configured on the system. Logical device names for special files in
/devices are located under the /dev directory. Although not every special file under /devices will have a corresponding logical
entry under /dev, whenever possible, an application should reference a device using the logical name for the device. Logical
device names are listed in the FILES section of the page for the device in question.
This section also describes driver configuration where applicable. Many device drivers have a driver configuration file of the
form driver_name.conf associated with them (see driver.conf(4)). The configuration information stored in the driver configura-
tion file is used to configure the driver and the device. Driver configuration files are located in /kernel/drv and /usr/ker-
nel/drv. Driver configuration files for platform dependent drivers are located in /platform/`uname -i`/kernel/drv where `uname
-i` is the output of the uname(1) command with the -i option.
Some driver configuration files may contain user configurable properties. Changes in a driver's configuration file will not take
effect until the system is rebooted or the driver has been removed and re-added (see rem_drv(1M) and add_drv(1M)).
(7FS) This section describes the programmatic interface for several file systems supported by SunOS.(7I) This section describes ioctl requests which apply to a class of drivers or subsystems. For example, ioctl requests which apply to
most tape devices are discussed in mtio(7I). Ioctl requests relevant to only a specific device are described on the man page
for that device. The page for the device in question should still be examined for exceptions to the ioctls listed in section 7I.(7M) This section describes STREAMS modules. Note that STREAMS drivers are discussed in section 7D. streamio(7I) contains a list of
ioctl requests used to manipulate STREAMS modules and interface with the STREAMS framework. Ioctl requests specific to a STREAMS
module will be discussed on the man page for that module.(7P) This section describes various network protocols available in SunOS.
SunOS supports both socket-based and STREAMS-based network communications. The Internet protocol family, described in inet(7P), is
the primary protocol family supported by SunOS, although the system can support a number of others. The raw interface provides
low-level services, such as packet fragmentation and reassembly, routing, addressing, and basic transport for socket-based imple-
mentations. Facilities for communicating using an Internet-family protocol are generally accessed by specifying the AF_INET
address family when binding a socket; see socket(3SOCKET) for details.
Major protocols in the Internet family include:
o The Internet Protocol (IP) itself, which supports the universal datagram format, as described in ip(7P). This is the default
protocol for SOCK_RAW type sockets within the AF_INET domain.
o The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP); see tcp(7P). This is the default protocol for SOCK_STREAM type sockets.
o The User Datagram Protocol (UDP); see udp(7P). This is the default protocol for SOCK_DGRAM type sockets.
o The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP); see arp(7P).
o The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP); see icmp(7P).
SEE ALSO
add_drv(1M), rem_drv(1M), intro(3), ioctl(2), socket(3SOCKET), driver.conf(4), arp(7P), icmp(7P), inet(7P), ip(7P), mtio(7I), st(7D),
streamio(7I), tcp(7P), udp(7P)
System Administration Guide: IP Services
STREAMS Programming Guide
Writing Device Drivers
LIST OF PAGES
Name Description
6to4(7M) See tun(7M)
6to4tun(7M) See tun(7M)
AH(7P) See ipsecah(7P)
ARP(7P) See arp(7P)
ESP(7P) See ipsecesp(7P)
FSS(7) Fair share scheduler
ICMP(7P) See icmp(7P)
IP(7P) See ip(7P)
RARP(7P) See rarp(7P)
SCTP(7P) See sctp(7P)
TCP(7P) See tcp(7P)
TUN(7M) See tun(7M)
UDP(7P) See udp(7P)
aac(7D) SCSI HBA driver for Adaptec AdvancedRAID Controller
adp(7D) Low-level module for controllers based on Adaptec AIC-7870P and AIC-7880P SCSI chips
adpu320(7D) Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI host bus adapter driver
afb(7d) Elite3D graphics accelerator driver
allkmem(7D) See mem(7D)
amr(7D) SCSI HBA driver for LSI MegaRAID Controller
arp(7P) Address Resolution Protocol
asy(7D) asynchronous serial port driver
ata(7D) AT attachment disk driver
atun(7M) See tun(7M)
audio(7I) generic audio device interface
audio810(7D) Amd 8111 south bridge audio digital controller interface
audio_support(7I) audio driver support routines and interface
audiocs(7D) Crystal Semiconductor 4231 Audio driver
audioens(7D) Ensoniq 1371/1373 and Creative Labs 5880 driver support
audiots(7D) Acer Laboratories Inc. M5451 audio processor interface
av1394(7D) 1394 audio/video driver
bbc_beep(7D) Platform-dependent Beep driver for BBC-based hardware.
bd(7M) SunButtons and SunDials STREAMS module
bge(7D) SUNW,bge Gigabit Ethernet driver for Broadcom BCM57xx
bpp(7D) bi-directional parallel port driver
bscbus(7D) See bscv(7D)
bscv(7D) Blade support chip interface driver
bufmod(7M) STREAMS Buffer Module
cadp(7D) Adaptec Ultra-2 SCSI host bus adapter driver
cadp160(7D) Adaptec Ultra160 SCSI host bus adapter driver
cdio(7I) CD-ROM control operations
ce(7D) Cassini Gigabit-Ethernet device driver
cgsix(7D) accelerated 8-bit color frame buffer
chs(7D) IBM ServeRAID PCI host adapter driver
cmdk(7D) common disk driver
connld(7M) line discipline for unique stream connections
console(7D) STREAMS-based console interface
cpr(7) Suspend and resume module
cpuid(7D) CPU identification driver
ctfs(7FS) contract file system
ctsmc(7D) System Management Controller driver
cvc(7D) virtual console driver
cvcredir(7D) virtual console redirection driver
dad(7D) driver for IDE disk devices
daplt(7D) Tavor uDAPL service driver
dbri(7D) Dual Basic Rate ISDN and audio Interface
devfs(7FS) Devices file system
devinfo(7D) device information driver
dkio(7I) disk control operations
dlcosmk(7ipp) Data Layer Class of Service Marker
dlpi(7P) Data Link Provider Interface
dmfe(7D) Davicom Fast Ethernet driver for Davicom DM9102A
dnet(7D) Ethernet driver for DEC 21040, 21041, 21140 Ethernet cards
dpt(7D) DPT ServeRAID IV SCSI host bus adapter and RAID adapter driver
dr(7d) Sun Enterprise 10000 dynamic reconfiguration driver
drmach(7d) See dr(7d)
dscpmk(7ipp) Differentiated Services Code Point Marker
dtrace(7D) DTrace dynamic tracing facility
e1000g(7D) 1000g Intel Gigabit and 82546EB based network interface controllers
ecpp(7D) IEEE 1284 compliant parallel port driver
ehci(7D) Enhanced host controller driver
elxl(7D) 3Com Ethernet device driver
eri(7D) eri Fast-Ethernet device driver
esp(7D) ESP SCSI Host Bus Adapter Driver
fas(7D) FAS SCSI Host Bus Adapter Driver
fasttrap(7D) DTrace user instruction tracing provider
fbio(7I) frame buffer control operations
fbt(7D) DTrace function boundary tracing provider
fcip(7D) IP/ARP over Fibre Channel datagram encapsulation driver
fcp(7D) Fibre Channel protocol driver
fctl(7D) Sun Fibre Channel transport library
fd(7D) drivers for floppy disks and floppy disk controllers
fdc(7D) See fd(7D)
fdio(7I) floppy disk control operations
ffb(7D) 24-bit UPA color frame buffer and graphics accelerator
flowacct(7ipp) Flow Accouting module
fp(7d) Sun Fibre Channel port driver
ge(7D) GEM Gigabit-Ethernet device driver
gld(7D) Generic
glm(7D) GLM SCSI Host Bus Adapter Driver
gpio_87317(7D) General purpose I/O driver for SuperIO
grbeep(7d) Platform-dependent beep driver for S
hci1394(7D) 1394 OpenHCI host controller driver
hdio(7I) SMD and IPI disk control operations
hid(7D) Human interface device (HID) class driver
hme(7D) SUNW,hme Fast-Ethernet device driver
hpfc(7D) Agilent fibre channel host bus adapter
hsfs(7FS) High Sierra [amp ] ISO 9660 CD-ROM file system
hubd(7D) USB hub driver
i2bsc(7D) See bscv(7D)
i2o_bs(7D) Block Storage OSM for I2O
i2o_scsi(7D) an I2O OS specific module that supports
ib(7D) InfiniBand Bus Nexus Driver
ibcm(7D) Solaris InfiniBand Communication Manager
ibd(7D) Infiniband IPoIB device driver
ibdm(7D) Solaris InfiniBand Device Manager
ibmf(7) InfiniBand Management Transport Framework
ibtl(7D) Solaris InfiniBand Transport Layer
icmp(7P) Internet Control Message Protocol
icmp6(7P) Internet Control Message Protocol for Internet Protocol Version 6
idn(7d) inter-domain network device driver
if(7P) See if_tcp(7P)
if_tcp(7P) general properties of Internet Protocol network interfaces
ifb(7d) 24-bit PCI color frame buffer and graphics accelerator driver
ifp(7D) ISP2100 Family Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter Driver
inet(7P) Internet protocol family
inet6(7P) Internet protocol family for Internet Protocol version 6
ip(7P) Internet Protocol
ip6(7P) Internet Protocol Version 6
ipgpc(7ipp) IP Generic Packet Classifier
ipqos(7ipp) IP Quality of Service
iprb(7D) Intel 82557, 82558, 82559[ndash ]controlled network interface controllers
ipsec(7P) Internet Protocol Security Architecture
ipsecah(7P) IPsec Authentication Header
ipsecesp(7P) IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload
isdnio(7I) ISDN interfaces
isp(7D) ISP SCSI Host Bus Adapter Driver
ixgb(7d) SUNWixgb, 10G Gigabit Ethernet driver for Intel 82597ex controllers and Sun Kirkwood adapters
jfb(7D) XVR-1200 Graphics Accelerator device driver
jfca(7D) JNI Fibre Channel Adapter (FCA) Driver
kb(7M) keyboard STREAMS module
kdmouse(7D) built-in mouse device interface
kmdb(7d) Kernel debugger
kmem(7D) See mem(7D)
kstat(7D) kernel statistics driver
ksyms(7D) kernel symbols
ldterm(7M) standard STREAMS terminal line discipline module
llc1(7D) Logical Link Control Protocol Class 1 Driver
llc2(7D) Class II logical link control driver
lockstat(7D) DTrace kernel lock instrumentation provider
lofi(7D) Loopback file driver
lofs(7FS) loopback virtual file system
log(7D) interface to STREAMS error logging and event tracing
logi(7D) LOGITECH Bus Mouse device interface
lp(7D) driver for parallel port
m64(7D) PGX, PGX24, and PGX64 frame buffers device driver
md(7D) user configurable pseudo device driver
mediator(7D) support for HA configurations consisting of two strings of drives
mem(7D) physical or virtual memory access
mhd(7i) multihost disk control operations
mixer(7I) audio mixer audio personality module interface
mpt(7D) SCSI host bus adapter driver
msglog(7D) message output collection from system startup or background applications
msm(7D) Microsoft Bus Mouse device interface
mt(7D) tape interface
mtio(7I) general magnetic tape interface
ncrs(7D) SCSI host bus adapter driver
ngdr(7d) See dr(7d)
ngdrmach(7d) See dr(7d)
null(7D) the null file, also called the null device
objfs(7FS) Kernel object filesystem
ocf_ibutton(7D) iButton Smart Card terminal driver
ohci(7D) OpenHCI host controller driver
openprom(7D) PROM monitor configuration interface
pcata(7D) PCMCIA ATA card device driver
pcelx(7D) 3COM EtherLink III PCMCIA Ethernet Adapter
pcfs(7FS) DOS formatted file system
pcic(7D) Intel i82365SL PC Card Interface Controller
pckt(7M) STREAMS Packet Mode module
pcmem(7D) PCMCIA memory card nexus driver
pcn(7D) AMD PCnet Ethernet controller device driver
pcram(7D) PCMCIA RAM memory card device driver
pcscsi(7D) low-level module for the AMD PCscsi, PCscsi II, PCnet-SCSI, and Qlogic QLA510 PCI-to-SCSI bus adapters
pcser(7D) PCMCIA serial card device driver
pf_key(7P) security association database
pfb(7D) Sun XVR-100 Graphics Accelerator device driver
pfmod(7M) STREAMS Packet Filter Module
pipemod(7M) STREAMS pipe flushing module
pm(7D) Power Management driver
poll(7d) driver for fast poll on many file descriptors
prnio(7I) generic printer interface
profile(7D) DTrace profile interrupt provider
ptem(7M) STREAMS Pseudo Terminal Emulation module
ptm(7D) STREAMS pseudo-tty master driver
pts(7D) STREAMS pseudo-tty slave driver
pty(7D) pseudo-terminal driver
qfe(7d) SUNW,qfe Quad Fast-Ethernet device driver
qlc(7D) ISP2200 and ISP2300 Family Fibre Channel host bus adapter driver
quotactl(7I) manipulate disk quotas
qus(7D) Qlogic Ultra3 SCSI ISP10160 Host Bus Adapter Driver
ramdisk(7D) RAM disk device driver
random(7D) Strong random number generator device
rarp(7P) Reverse address resolution protocol
route(7P) kernel packet forwarding database
routing(7P) system support for packet network routing
rtls(7D) Realtek Fast Ethernet 8139[ndash ]based network interface controllers
sad(7D) STREAMS Administrative Driver
sbpro(7D) Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, and Sound Blaster AWE32 audio device driver
scmi2c(7d) Smart Transporter chip device driver
scsa1394(7D) SCSI to 1394 bridge driver
scsa2usb(7D) SCSI to USB bridge driver
scsi_vhci(7D) SCSI virtual host controller interconnect driver
sctp(7P) Stream Control Transmission Protocol
sd(7D) SCSI disk and ATAPI/SCSI CD-ROM device driver
sdt(7D) DTrace statically defined tracing provider
se(7D) Siemens 82532 ESCC serial communications driver
se_hdlc(7D) on-board high-performance serial HDLC interface
ses(7D) SCSI enclosure services device driver
sesio(7I) enclosure services device driver interface
sf(7D) SOC+ FC-AL FCP Driver
sgen(7D) Generic SCSI device driver
sip(7P) SIP Proxy/registrar/redirect server
sk98sol(7D) SysKonnect Gigabit Ethernet SK-98xx device driver
skfp(7D) SysKonnect FDDI PCI device driver
slp(7P) Service Location Protocol
smbus(7D) System Management Bus controller driver
socal(7D) Serial Optical Controller for Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (SOC+) device driver
sockio(7I) ioctls that operate directly on sockets
sppptun(7M) PPP tunneling pseudo-driver
spwr(7D) SMC EtherPower II 10/100(9432) Ethernet device driver
ssd(7D) Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop disk device driver
st(7D) driver for SCSI tape devices
stp4020(7D) STP 4020 PCMCIA Adapter
streamio(7I) STREAMS ioctl commands
su(7D) asynchronous serial port driver
sxp(7D) Rockwell 2200 SNAP Streams Driver
symhisl(7D) symhisl SCSI Host Bus Adapter Driver
sysmsg(7D) system message routing to console devices
systrace(7D) DTrace system call tracing provider
tavor(7D) InfiniHost MT23108 InfiniBand (IB) Driver
tcp(7P) Internet Transmission Control Protocol
termio(7I) general terminal interface
termiox(7I) extended general terminal interface
ticlts(7D) loopback transport providers
ticots(7D) See ticlts(7D)
ticotsord(7D) See ticlts(7D)
timod(7M) Transport Interface cooperating STREAMS module
tirdwr(7M) Transport Interface read/write interface STREAMS module
tmpfs(7FS) memory based file system
tokenmt(7ipp) Single and Two Rate Three Conformance Level Meter
tpf(7D) Platform Specific Module (PSM) for Tricord Systems Enterprise Server Models ES3000, ES4000 and ES5000.
tsalarm(7D) Alarm device driver
tswtclmt(7ipp) Time Sliding Window Three Conformance Level Meter
ttcompat(7M) V7, 4BSD and XENIX STREAMS compatibility module
tty(7D) controlling terminal interface
ttymux(7D) Serial I/O multiplexing STREAMS device driver
tun(7M) tunneling STREAMS module
uata(7D) IDE Host Bus Adapter Driver
udfs(7FS) universal disk format file system
udp(7P) Internet User Datagram Protocol
ufs(7FS) UFS file system
ugen(7D) USB generic driver
uhci(7D) host controller driver
urandom(7D) See random(7D)
usb(7D) See usba(7D)
usb_ac(7D) USB audio control driver
usb_ah(7M) USB audio HID STREAMS module
usb_as(7D) USB audio streaming driver
usb_mid(7D) USB Multi Interface Driver
usba(7D) Solaris USB Architecture (USBA)
usbkbm(7M) keyboard STREAMS module for Sun USB Keyboard
usbms(7M) USB mouse STREAMS module
usbprn(7D) USB printer class driver
usbser_edge(7D) Digi Edgeport USB to serial converter driver
uscsi(7I) user SCSI command interface
usoc(7D) universal serial optical controller for Fibre Channel arbitrated loop (SOC+) device driver
visual_io(7I) Solaris VISUAL I/O control operations
vni(7d) STREAMS virtual network interface driver
volfs(7FS) Volume Management file system
vuid2ps2(7M) See vuidmice(7M)
vuid3ps2(7M) See vuidmice(7M)
vuidm3p(7M) See vuidmice(7M)
vuidm4p(7M) See vuidmice(7M)
vuidm5p(7M) See vuidmice(7M)
vuidmice(7M) converts mouse protocol to Firm Events
wrsm(7D) WCI Remote Shared Memory (WRSM) device driver
wrsmd(7D) WCI Remote Shared Memory (WRSM) DLPI driver
wscons(7D) workstation console
xge(7D) S2IO Xframe 10Gigabit Ethernet Network Adapter driver
xmemfs(7FS) extended memory file system
zcons(7D) Zone console device driver
zero(7D) source of zeroes
zs(7D) Zilog 8530 SCC serial communications driver
zsh(7D) On-board serial HDLC/SDLC interface
zulu(7d) Sun XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator driver
SunOS 5.10 21 Dec 2004 Intro(7)