KMDF vs NDIS

NTDEV
1

Hi all,
considering a design of two modules:

  1. NDIS miniport
  2. Virtual bus driver for NDIS mini

What are the pros and cons of KMDF vs NDIS implmentation ?
in terms of:

  1. Performance
  2. Coding/debugging/maintnance
  3. Installation
  4. Windows Logo
  5. Other

Thanks

2

Comparing NDIS and KMDF is not something most people consider. If you want
to talk on the network stack you need NDIS. What becomes the question is
whether you need only an NDIS mini-port or an NDIS/KMDF mini-port. Note:
there used to be NDIS/WDM mini-ports but these are not logo-able anymore.

You mention a virtual bus driver, but you do not explain the context of why
you need this. Tell us what your device/problem is you are tackling and we
can give you more data. In general, if you can do everything with NDIS do
it, otherwise we need details.

–
Don Burn (MVP, Windows DDK)
Windows 2k/XP/2k3 Filesystem and Driver Consulting
Website: http://www.windrvr.com
Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/WinDrvr
Remove StopSpam to reply

wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> Hi all,
> considering a design of two modules:
> 1. NDIS miniport
> 2. Virtual bus driver for NDIS mini
>
> What are the pros and cons of KMDF vs NDIS implmentation ?
> in terms of:
> 1. Performance
> 2. Coding/debugging/maintnance
> 3. Installation
> 4. Windows Logo
> 5. Other
>
> Thanks
>
>

3

The virtual bus driver purpose in the design is the manage shared
PCI resources as a BAR and interrupts between NDIS mini’s.

I see that in order to support windows logo the NDIS mini needs to have lower
KMDF side and the bus driver should be implemented as KMDF.

Is it so?
Are there any other options of implementation?
If so what are the tradeoffs?

4

What are the resources not reported as separate functions so that PCI can split the device into separate logical functions on its own? Have you looked at mf.sys to do the function splitting for you?

Since you are splitting out hw resources, there is no real perf implications here since hw access will be through direct access and not through an i/o request. On the other hand, you cannot assign (in windows terms, arbitrate) hw resources to your children that belong to the parent though. You will have to enumerate children w/no resources assigned to them and create a private interface between the ndis mp and your bus driver to query for and retrieve a subset of the hw resources

d

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of tomerg22@012.net.il
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2008 5:03 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE:[ntdev] KMDF vs NDIS

The virtual bus driver purpose in the design is the manage shared
PCI resources as a BAR and interrupts between NDIS mini’s.

I see that in order to support windows logo the NDIS mini needs to have lower
KMDF side and the bus driver should be implemented as KMDF.

Is it so?
Are there any other options of implementation?
If so what are the tradeoffs?

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