Correct Behavior of NDIS MAC Drivers at INIT Time (60234)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft LAN Manager 2.0
  • Microsoft LAN Manager 2.1
  • Microsoft LAN Manager 2.1a
  • Microsoft LAN Manager 2.2
This article was previously published under Q60234

SUMMARY

The following information is included in network driver interface specification (NDIS) version 2.0.1:

For compatibility with remote initial program load (RIPL), media access control (MAC) drivers must not manipulate the network adapter at INIT time. The MAC driver is free to determine if the network adapter is present, but must leave any hardware manipulation to bind time processing.

This comment was added to the NDIS 2.0.0/1 External Review Copy document. NDIS version 1.0.1 does not include this comment. According to NDIS version 1.0.1, an NDIS MAC driver is doing hardware initialization at INIT time. Therefore, manipulating the network adapter at INIT time makes the driver incompatible.

The bootstrapping software running on a RPL workstation uses a network card to download the operating system code from the RPL server. The software loads each driver in turn and initializes it as it is loaded.

Since the booting sequence is not guaranteed to have been completed when the driver for the network card that is used for RPL is loaded, initializing the network card hardware at driver load time will interfere with the remote booting process and cause the remote boot to fail. Therefore, the network card driver should defer all hardware initialization to net bind time, since at that point the remote boot process has been completed.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:9/30/2003
Keywords:KB60234
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