NDISCVT(8) (i386)

NDISCVT(8) | System Manager's Manual (i386) | NDISCVT(8)

# NAME

ndiscvt — convert Windows® NDIS drivers for use with NetBSD

# SYNOPSIS

ndiscvt | [-O] [-i inffile] [-n devname] [-o outfile] -s sysfile

# DESCRIPTION

The ndiscvt utility transforms a Windows® NDIS driver into a data file which is used to build an ndis compatibility driver module. Windows® drivers consist of two main parts: a .SYS file, which contains the actual driver executable code, and an .INF file, which provides the Windows® installer with device identifier information and a list of driver-specific registry keys. The ndiscvt utility can convert these files into a header file that is compiled into if_ndis.c to create an object code module that can be linked into the NetBSD kernel.

The .INF file is typically required since only it contains device identification data such as PCI vendor and device IDs or PCMCIA indentifier strings. The .INF file may be optionally omitted however, in which case the ndiscvt utility will only perform the conversion of the .SYS file. This is useful for debugging purposes only.

# OPTIONS

The options are as follows:

-i inffile
  Open and parse the specified .INF file when performing conversion. The ndiscvt utility will parse this file and emit a device identification structure and registry key configuration structures which will be used by the ndis driver and ndisapi kernel subsystem. If this is omitted, ndiscvt will emit a dummy configuration structure only.
-n 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 IFNAMSIZ. If no name is specified, the driver will use the default a default name (“`ndis`”).
-O
  Generate both an ndis_driver_data.h file and an ndis_driver.data.o file. The latter file will contain a copy of the Windows® .SYS driver image encoded as a NetBSD ELF object file (created with objcopy(1)). Turning the Windows® driver image directly into an object code file saves disk space and compilation time.
-o outfile
  Specify the output file in which to place the resulting data. This can be any file pathname. If outfile is a single dash (‘-'), the data will be written to the standard output. The if_ndis.c module expects to find the driver data in a file called ndis_driver_data.h, so it is recommended that this name be used.
-s sysfile
  Open and parse the specified .SYS file. This file must contain a Windows® driver image. The ndiscvt 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.

# SEE ALSO

ld(1), objcopy(1), ndis(4)

# HISTORY

The ndiscvt utility first appeared in FreeBSD 5.3.

# AUTHORS

The ndiscvt utility was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@windriver.com>. The lex(1) and yacc(1) .INF file parser was written by Matthew Dodd <mdodd@FreeBSD.org>.

December 24, 2007 | NetBSD 5.99