731 - Writing UnixWare 7 Device Drivers

Course Overview
Course Objectives
Prerequisites
Course Series
Course Topics

Course Overview

Writing UnixWare 7 Device Drivers is designed for:

Experienced C programmers who would like to learn how to write a device driver.
Programmers who already know how to write device drivers for another version of UNIX or any other multi-tasking operating system.

In this course, students learn the what device drivers are and how to write them for UnixWare's multi-user, multi-tasking, multi-processor enviroment.

Writing UnixWare 7 Device Drivers is a high level course that is taught with task-oriented lectures and hands-on labs.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

Diagram the UnixWare architecture and explain the functionality of the major components of the kernel
Describe basic features of the Intel 386 through Pentium II I/O hardware as it relates to device drivers
Compare and contrast the various types of device drivers
Explain the synchronization mechanisms used to protect sensative resources in a single and multi-processor system.
Write, install, and use a interrupt and non-interrupt character device driver
Create demand-loadable device drivers
Create auto-configuring device drivers
Create streams device drivers
Create block-I/O device drivers
Describe the architecture of SCSI and other storage technology device drivers in UnixWare 7

Prerequisites

Students should have at least 6 months of experience programming in C using system calls.
Students must have mastered the content of the following course before attending this course:

721 - Introduction to SCO UnixWare 7 Internals

Course Series

This course is often taken as part of the following course sequence:

721 - Introduction to SCO UnixWare 7 Internals
731 - Writing UnixWare 7 Device Drivers

Course Topics

1.0 Introduction
1.1 What this course covers.
1.2 What this course does not cover.
1.3 Typographical conventions.
1.4 Course layout.
1.5 How labs are conducted.
2.0 Overview of Device Drivers
2.1 Overview of the Unix kernel architecture.
2.2 The function of a device driver.
2.3 Driver types:
2.3.1 Character: open/close/read/write/ioctl.
2.3.2 Block:
2.3.2.1 target: open/close/strategy/ioctl.
2.3.2.2 HBAs: overview of concepts, routines covered later.
2.3.3 The merging of character and block in DDI8.
2.3.4 Stream: putqueue/getqueue.
2.4 Review of the /etc/conf  directory structure.
3.0 Driver Paradigms and concepts
3.1 Linking - Dynamic and Static
3.1.1 In DDI8 - all drivers written the same
3.1.2 Pre DDI8 - Use of wrappers
3.1.3 OSR5 - all static
3.2 Configuration - Auto or otherwise
3.2.1 In DDI8 - all auto-configuring.
3.2.2 Pre DDI8 - Optional
3.2.3 OSR5 - no auto-tuning
3.3 Intel-Specific Driver Issues
3.3.1 I/O addresses and the in() and out() routines.
3.3.2 Busy/Wait, polling, interrupts, IPLs, and locks.
3.3.3 Memory-Mapped I/O (i.e. dual-ported ram) and its associated
routines.
3.3.4 DMA and its associated routines.
3.4 Driver Model
3.4.1 Non-streams:
3.4.1.1 Character - traditional - no different than block in DDI8
3.4.1.2 Block. The UnixWare SDI interface (target/HBA)
3.4.2 Streams:
3.4.2.1 MDI
3.4.2.2 DLPI
3.4.2.3 TTY
4.0 A Simple Driver
4.1 The UnixWare DDI/DKI.
4.2 Creating a simple Driver Software Package (DSP)
4.2.1 The Master file.
4.2.2 The System file.
4.2.3 The Node file.
4.2.4 The Drvmap file.
4.2.5 The Space.c file.
4.2.6 The makefile file.
4.2.7 The  Driver.o file
4.2.7.1 The _load(), _unload() and initialization routines.
4.2.7.2  and the cmn_err() routine.
4.2.8 The id commands.
4.3 LAB: static linking of this driver / reboot / restart / test.
4.4 The DSP changes and wrappers needed for pre-DDI8 dynamic drivers.
4.5 LAB: make the driver dynamic / test, no reboot, no restart
4.6 Auto-configuring drivers
4.7 Additional DSP files:
4.7.1 The Autotune file.
4.7.2 Others breifly mentioned.
5.0 Flesh Of A Basic Driver
5.1 The config() routine
5.2 The devinfo() routine
5.2.1 BCBs, physrec's, physrecalloc(), bcballoc() and bcbprep()
5.3 The open() routine.
5.4 The close() routine.
5.5 LAB: Modify driver from above and use I/O redirection to open it.
5.6 The startio() and read()/write() routines.
5.7 The ioctl() routine.
5.8 The interrupt() routine, IPLs, and multi-threaded IPLs/locks
5.9 Unreliable devices, timeouts, and associated routines.
5.10 LAB: Modify previous lab and use mouse-test program.
6.0 Block Drivers
6.1 A block-devicer's DSP.
6.2 More about BCBs and bufbreakup().
6.3 The strategy() routine (pre-DDI8).
6.4 LAB: a RAM-disk driver.
7.0 Streams Drivers
7.1 Where did streams come from?
7.2 Overview of a streams driver (head, driver, queues, modules).
7.3 A streams device's DSP.
7.4 Streams device driver routines: getqueue(), putqueue(), etc.
7.5 Streams flow-control.
7.6 LAB: A streams-driven bus-mouse driver.
7.7 Overview of multiplexing streams drivers.
8.0 The Host and Target Driver Scheme for Storage Devices
8.1 Review of SDI architecture
8.2 The HBA initialization sequence and the claiming of Target devices.
8.3 I/O sequences and their relationship to block (Target) drivers.
8.4 Hot-plug events in SDI (HBA and Disk)
8.5 Layered driver overview
8.6 MPIO overview