freebsd/usr.sbin/ndiscvt/ndiscvt.8

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.\"	Bill Paul <wpaul@windriver.com> All rights reserved.
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.Dd December 10, 2003
.Dt NDISCVT 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ndiscvt
.Nd convert
.Tn Windows\[rg]
NDIS drivers for use with FreeBSD
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl O
.Op Fl i Ar inffile
.Fl s Ar sysfile
.Op Fl n Ar devname
.Op Fl o Ar outfile
.Nm
.Op Fl f Ar firmfile
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility transforms a
.Tn Windows\[rg]
NDIS driver into a data file which
is used to build an
.Xr ndis 4
compatibility driver module.
.Tn Windows\[rg]
drivers consist of two main parts: a
.Pa .SYS
file, which contains the actual driver executable code,
and an
.Pa .INF
file, which provides the
.Tn Windows\[rg]
installer with device
identifier information and a list of driver-specific registry keys.
The
.Nm
utility can convert these files into a header file that is compiled
into
.Pa if_ndis.c
to create an object code module that can be linked into
the
.Fx
kernel.
.Pp
The
.Pa .INF
file is typically required since only it contains device
identification data such as PCI vendor and device IDs or PCMCIA
identifier strings.
The
.Pa .INF
file may be optionally omitted however,
in which case the
.Nm
utility will only perform the conversion of the
.Pa .SYS
file.
This is useful for debugging purposes only.
.Sh OPTIONS
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl i Ar inffile
Open and parse the specified
.Pa .INF
file when performing conversion.
The
.Nm
utility will parse this file and emit a device identification
structure and registry key configuration structures which will be
used by the
.Xr ndis 4
driver and
.Xr ndisapi 9
kernel subsystem.
If this is omitted,
.Nm
will emit a dummy configuration structure only.
.It Fl s Ar sysfile
Open and parse the specified
.Pa .SYS
file.
This file must contain a
.Tn Windows\[rg]
driver image.
The
.Nm
utility will perform some manipulation of the sections within the
executable file to make runtime linking within the kernel a little
easier and then convert the image into a data array.
.It Fl n Ar devname
Specify an alternate name for the network device/interface which will
be created when the driver is instantiated.
If you need to load more
than one NDIS driver into your system (i.e., if you have two different
network cards in your system which require NDIS driver support), each
module you create must have a unique name.
Device can not be larger than
.Dv IFNAMSIZ .
If no name is specified, the driver will use the
default a default name
.Pq Dq Li ndis .
.It Fl o Ar outfile
Specify the output file in which to place the resulting data.
This can be any file pathname.
If
.Ar outfile
is a single dash
.Pq Sq Fl ,
the data will be written to the standard output.
The
.Pa if_ndis.c
module expects to find the driver data in a file called
.Pa ndis_driver_data.h ,
so it is recommended that this name be used.
.It Fl O
Generate both an
.Pa ndis_driver_data.h
file and
an
.Pa ndis_driver.data.o
file.
The latter file will contain a copy of the
.Tn Windows\[rg]
.Pa .SYS
driver image encoded as a
.Fx
ELF object file
(created with
.Xr objcopy 1 ) .
Turning the
.Tn Windows\[rg]
driver image directly into an object code file saves disk space
and compilation time.
.It Fl f Ar firmfile
A few NDIS drivers come with additional files that the core
driver module will load during initialization time.
Typically,
these files contain firmware which the driver will transfer to
the device in order to make it fully operational.
In
.Tn Windows\[rg] ,
these files are usually just copied into one of the system
directories along with the driver itself.
.Pp
In
.Fx
there are two mechanism for loading these files.
If the driver
is built as a loadable kernel module which is loaded after the
kernel has finished booting
(and after the root file system has
been mounted),
the extra files can simply be copied to the
.Pa /compat/ndis
directory, and they will be loaded into the kernel on demand when the
driver needs them.
.Pp
If however the driver is required to bootstrap the system
(i.e., if
the NDIS-based network interface is to be used for diskless/PXE
booting),
the files need to be pre-loaded by the bootstrap
loader in order to be accessible, since the driver will need them
before the root file system has been mounted.
However, the bootstrap
loader is only able to load files that are shared
.Fx
binary objects.
.Pp
The
.Fl f
flag can be used to convert an arbitrary file
.Ar firmfile
into shared object format
(the actual conversion is done using
the
.Xr objcopy 1
and
.Xr ld 1
commands).
The resulting files can then be copied to the
.Pa /boot/kernel
directory, and can be pre-loaded directly from the boot loader
prompt, or automatically by editing the
.Xr loader.conf 5
file.
If desired, the files can also be loaded into memory
at runtime using the
.Xr kldload 8
command.
.Pp
When an NDIS driver tries to open an external file, the
.Xr ndisapi 9
code will first search for a loaded kernel module that matches the
name specified in the open request, and if that fails, it will then
try to open the file from the
.Pa /compat/ndis
directory as well.
Note that during kernel bootstrap, the ability
to open files from
.Pa /compat/ndis
is disabled: only the module search will be performed.
.Pp
When using the
.Fl f
flag,
.Nm
will generate both a relocatable object file
(with a
.Pa .o
extension)
and a shared object file
(with a
.Pa .ko
extension).
The shared object is the one that should be placed in
the
.Pa /boot/kernel
directory.
The relocatable object file is useful if the user wishes
to create a completely static kernel image: the object file can be
linked into the kernel directly along with the driver itself.
Some
editing of the kernel configuration files will be necessary in order
to have the extra object included in the build.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ld 1 ,
.Xr objcopy 1 ,
.Xr ndis 4 ,
.Xr kldload 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility first appeared in
.Fx 5.3 .
.Sh AUTHORS
.An -nosplit
The
.Nm
utility was written by
.An Bill Paul Aq Mt wpaul@windriver.com .
The
.Xr lex 1
and
.Xr yacc 1
.Pa INF
file parser was written by
.An Matthew Dodd Aq Mt mdodd@FreeBSD.org .