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5
Implementing the Autoconfiguration
Support Section (probe)
The autoconfiguration support section contains the code that implements a
network device driver’s probe interface. A network device driver’s probe
interface determines whether the network device exists and is functional on
a given system. The bus configuration code calls the driver’s probe interface.
The if_el driver operates on the ISA and PCMCIA bus. For the PCMCIA
bus, it provides a driver-specific routine that is called when a user removes
the card from the slot. For the ISA bus, the driver provides routines to reset,
activate, and read from hardware registers. These routines are specific to
the if_el device driver. To learn how the driver handles these tasks, see
the source listing in the examples directory that is installed with the device
driver kit.
The following sections describe how to use the probe interface:
• Implementing the el_probe( ) routine (Section 5.1)
• Implementing the el_shutdown( ) routine (Section 5.2)
• Implementing the el_autosense_thread( ) routine (Section 5.3)
5.1 Implementing the el_probe Routine
The el_probe( ) routine performs the following tasks:
• Checks the maximum number of devices that the driver supports
(Section 5.1.2)
• Performs bus-specific tasks (Section 5.1.3)
• Allocates memory for the softc and ether_driver data structures
(Section 5.1.4 and Section 5.1.5)
• Initializes the enhanced hardware management data structure
(Section 5.1.6)
• Computes the control and status register addresses (Section 5.1.7)
• Sets bus-specific data structure members (Section 5.1.8)
• If this is the first time the device has been probed, copies data from the
EEPROM, reads and saves the device’s physical address and starts the
autosense kernel thread to determine the media type (Section 5.1.9)
Implementing the Autoconfiguration Support Section (probe) 5–1