About Device Drivers

A computer typically uses a wide range of peripheral and mass-storage devices. Your system, for example, probably has a SCSI disk drive, a keyboard and a mouse, and some kind of magnetic backup medium. Other commonly used devices include CD-ROM drives, printers and plotters, light pens, touch-sensitive screens, digitizers, and tablet-and-stylus pairs.

The Solaris software does not directly communicate with all these devices. Each type of device requires different data formats, protocols, and transmission rates.

A device driver is a low-level program that allows the operating system to communicate with a specific piece of hardware. The driver serves as the operating system's "interpreter" for that piece of hardware.

Automatic Configuration of Devices

The kernel, consisting of a small generic core with a platform-specific component and a set of modules, is configured automatically in the Solaris 2.x environment.

A kernel module is a hardware or software component that is used to perform a specific task on the system. An example of a loadable kernel module is a device driver that is loaded when the device is accessed.

The platform-independent kernel is /kernel/genunix. The platform-specific component is /platform/'uname -m'/kernel/unix.

The kernel modules are described in Table 25-2.

Table 25-2

Location	This Directory Contains ...
/platform/'uname -m' /kernel	Platform-specific kernel components
/kernel	Kernel components common to all platforms that are needed for booting the system
/usr/kernel	Kernel components common to all platforms within a particular instruction set

The system determines what devices are attached to it at boot time. Then the kernel configures itself dynamically, loading needed modules into memory. At this time, device drivers are loaded when devices, such as disk and tape devices, are accessed for the first time. This process is called autoconfiguration because all kernel modules are loaded automatically when needed.

You can customize the way in which kernel modules are loaded by modifying the /etc/system file. See "Managing System Performance" in System Administration Guide, Volume II, for instructions on modifying this file.

Features and Benefits

The benefits of autoconfiguration are:

• Main memory is used more efficiently because modules are loaded when needed.
• There is no need to reconfigure the kernel when new devices are added to the system.
• Drivers can be loaded and tested without having to rebuild the kernel and reboot the system.

The autoconfiguration process is used by a system administrator when adding a new device (and driver) to the system. At this time, the administrator performs a reconfiguration boot so the system will recognize the new device.

What You Need For Unsupported Devices

Device drivers needed to support a wide range of standard devices are included in the Solaris 2.x environment. These drivers can be found in the /kernel/drv and /platform/'uname -m'/kernel/drv directories.

However, if you've purchased an unsupported device, the manufacturer should provide the software needed for the device to be properly installed, maintained, and administered.

At a minimum, this software includes a device driver and its associated configuration .conf) file. The .conf files reside in the drv directories. In addition, the device may be incompatible with Solaris 2.x utilities, and may require custom maintenance and administrative utilities.

Contact your device manufacturer for more information.

Adding a Peripheral Device to a System

Adding a new peripheral device usually involves:

• Shutting down the system
• Connecting the device to the system
• Rebooting the system

Use the procedure below to add the following devices to a system:

• CD-ROM
• Secondary disk drive
• Tape drive
• SBUS card

In some cases, you may have to add a third-party device driver to support the new device.

· How to Add a Peripheral Device

1. Become root.

2. Follow steps 2 and 3 of "How to a Add a Device Driver" on page 393 if you need to add a device driver to support the device.

3. Create the /reconfigure file.

# touch /reconfigure

The /reconfigure file will cause the Solaris software to check for the presence of any newly installed devices the next time you turn on or boot your system.

4. Shut down the system.

# shutdown -i0 -g30 -y

In this command,

-i0	Brings the system to the 0 init state, which is the appropriate state for turning the system power off for adding and removing devices.
-g30	Shuts the system down in 30 seconds. The default is 60 seconds.
-y	Continues the system shutdown without user intervention; otherwise, you are prompted to continue the shutdown process.

5. Turn off power to the system after it is shut down.

On SPARC Systems ...	On x86 Systems ...
It is safe to turn off power if the ok or > prompt is displayed.	It is safe to turn off power if the type any key to continue prompt is displayed.

Refer to the hardware installation guide that accompanies your system for the location of the power switch.

6. Turn off power to all external devices.

   For location of power switches on any peripheral devices, refer to the hardware installation guides that accompany your peripheral devices.

7. Install the peripheral device making sure the device you are adding has a different target number than the other devices on the system.

   You will often find a small switch located at the back of the disk for this purpose.

   Refer to the hardware installation guide that accompanies the peripheral device for information on installing and connecting the device.

8. Turn on the power to the system.

   The system will boot to multiuser mode and the login prompt will be displayed.

Verification--Adding a Peripheral Device

Verify that the peripheral device has been added by attempting to access the device. See Chapter 26, "Accessing Devices," for information on accessing the device.

· How to a Add a Device Driver

This procedure assumes that the device has already been added to the system. If not, see "How to Add a Peripheral Device" on page 391.

1. Become root.

2. Place the tape, diskette, or CD-ROM into the drive.

3. Use the pkgadd command install the driver.

# pkgadd -d device package-name

In this command,

-d device	Identifies the device pathname.
package-name	Identifies the package name that contains the device driver.

Verification--Adding a Device Driver

Verify that the package has been added correctly by using the pkgchk command. The system prompt returns with no response if the package is installed correctly.

# pkgchk packagename #

Example--Adding a Device Driver

The following example installs and verifies a package called XYZdrv.

# pkgadd XYZdrv (licensing messages displayed) . . . Installing XYZ Company driver as <XYZdrv> . . . Installation of <XYZdrv> was successful. # pkgchk XYZdrv

Displaying Device Configuration Information

Three commands are used to display system and device configuration information:

• prtconf - Displays system configuration information, including total amount of memory and the device configuration as described by the system's device hierarchy.

  The output displayed by this command depends upon the type of system.

• sysdef - Displays device configuration information including system hardware, pseudo devices, loadable modules, and selected kernel parameters.
• dmesg - Displays system diagnostic messages as well as a list of devices attached to the system since the last reboot.

See "Device Naming Conventions" on page 404 for information on the device names used to identify devices on the system.

driver not attached Message

The following driver-related message may be displayed by the prtconf and sysdef commands:

device, instance #number (driver not attached)

This message does not always mean that a driver is unavailable for this device. It means that no driver is currently attached to the device instance because there is no device at this node or the device is not in use. Drivers are loaded automatically when the device is accessed and unloaded when the device is not in use.

Identifying a System's Devices

Use the output of prtconf and sysdef commands to identify which disk, tape, and CD-ROM devices are connected to the system. The output of these commands display the driver not attached messages next to the device instances. Since these devices are always being monitored by some system process, the driver not attached message is usually a good indication that there is no device at that device instance.

For example, the following prtconf output identifies a device at instance #3 and instance #6, which is probably a disk device at target 3 and a CD-ROM device at target 6 of the first SCSI host adapter (esp, instance #0).

$ /usr/sbin/prtconf . . . esp, instance #0 sd (driver not attached) st (driver not attached) sd, instance #0 (driver not attached) sd, instance #1 (driver not attached) sd, instance #2 (driver not attached) sd, instance #3 sd, instance #4 (driver not attached) sd, instance #5 (driver not attached) sd, instance #6 . . .

The same device information can be gleaned from the sysdef output.

· How to Display System Configuration Information

Use the prtconf command to display system configuration information.

$ /usr/sbin/prtconf

Use the sysdef command to display system configuration information including pseudo devices, loadable modules, and selected kernel parameters

$ /usr/sbin/sysdef

Examples--Displaying System Configuration Information

The following prtconf output is displayed on a SPARC system.

# prtconf System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4c Memory size: 32 Megabytes System Peripherals (Software Nodes): SUNW,Sun 4_50 packages (driver not attached) disk-label (driver not attached) deblocker (driver not attached) obp-tftp (driver not attached) options, instance #0 aliases (driver not attached) openprom (driver not attached) zs, instance #0 zs, instance #1 audio (driver not attached) eeprom (driver not attached) counter-timer (driver not attached) memory-error (driver not attached) interrupt-enable (driver not attached) auxiliary-io (driver not attached) sbus, instance #0 dma, instance #0 esp, instance #0 sd (driver not attached) st (driver not attached) sd, instance #0 (driver not attached) sd, instance #1 (driver not attached) sd, instance #2 (driver not attached) sd, instance #3 sd, instance #4 (driver not attached) sd, instance #5 (driver not attached) sd, instance #6 . . .

The following sysdef output is displayed from an x86 system.

# sysdef * * Hostid * 24b02304 * * i86pc Configuration * * * Devices * eisa, instance #0 kd, instance #0 eha, instance #0 cmdk, instance #0 cmdk, instance #1 (driver not attached) cmdk, instance #2 (driver not attached) cmdk, instance #3 (driver not attached) cmdk, instance #4 (driver not attached) cmdk, instance #5 (driver not attached) cmdk, instance #6 . . .

· How to Display Device Information

Display device information with the dmesg command.

$ /usr/sbin/dmesg

The dmesg output is displayed as messages on the system console and identifies which devices are connected to the system since the last reboot.

Examples--Displaying Device Information

The following dmesg output is displayed from a SPARC system.

# dmesg May 31 10:32 SunOS Release 5.4 Version[UNIX(R) System V Release 4.0] Copyright (c) 1983-1994, Sun Microsystems, Inc. mem = 28672K (0x1c00000) avail mem = 26701824 Ethernet address = 8:0:20:9:5:d9 root nexus = Sun 4_65 sbus0 at root: obio 0xf8000000 dma0 at sbus0: SBus slot 0 0x400000 esp0 at sbus0: SBus slot 0 0x800000 SBus level 3 sparc ipl 3 sd1 at esp0: target 1 lun 0 sd1 is /sbus@1,f8000000/esp@0,800000/sd@1,0 <SUN1.3G cyl 1965 alt 2 hd 17 sec 80> sd3 at esp0: target 3 lun 0 sd3 is /sbus@1,f8000000/esp@0,800000/sd@3,0 <SUN0207 cyl 1254 alt 2 hd 9 sec 36> root on /sbus@1,f8000000/esp@0,800000/sd@1,0:a fstype ufs zs0 at root: obio 0xf1000000 sparc ipl 12 zs0 is /zs@1,f1000000 zs1 at root: obio 0xf0000000 sparc ipl 12 zs1 is /zs@1,f0000000 cgsix0 at sbus0: SBus slot 2 0x0 SBus level 5 sparc ipl 7 cgsix0 is /sbus@1,f8000000/cgsix@2,0 cgsix0: screen 1152x900, single buffered, 1M mappable, rev 2 le0 at sbus0: SBus slot 0 0xc00000 SBus level 4 sparc ipl 5 le0 is /sbus@1,f8000000/le@0,c00000 le1 at sbus0: SBus slot 1 0xc00000 SBus level 4 sparc ipl 5 le1 is /sbus@1,f8000000/le@1,c00000 dump on /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s1 size 33308K pseudo-device: vol0 vol0 is /pseudo/vol@0 fd0 at root: obio 0xf7200000 sparc ipl 11

The following dmesg output is displayed from an x86 system.

# dmesg May 31 10:30 SunOS Release 5.4 Version [UNIX(R) System V Release 4.0] Copyright (c) 1983-1994, Sun Microsystems, Inc. mem = 15992K (0xf9e000) avail mem = 12070912 root nexus = i86pc eisa0 at root EISA-device: dpt6 Disk0:<Vendor 'MAXTOR ' Product 'LXT-535S '> cmdk0 at dpt6 target 0 lun 0 cmdk0 is /eisa/dpt@5c88,0/cmdk@0,0 Disk6:<Vendor 'SONY ' Product 'CD-ROM CDU-8012 '> cmdk6 at dpt6 target 6 lun 0 cmdk6 is /eisa/dpt@5c88,0/cmdk@6,0 EISA-device: asy0 asy0 is /eisa/asy@3f8,0 Ethernet address = 0:0:c0:68:14:5d SMC WD8003/WD8013 driver: type=WD8013W addr=00 00 c0 68 14 5d EISA-device: smc0 smc0 is /eisa/smc@0,c0000 dump on /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 size 32756K NOTICE: GIO_KEYMAP type 0 NOTICE: PIO_KEYMAP type 0 NOTICE: INSTALLING new map of type USL FORMAT NOTICE: IN i8042_acquire NOTICE: out i8042_acquire NOTICE: rv was 1 NOTICE: IN i8042_release NOTICE: about to enable keyboard NOTICE: out i8042_release Nov 30 17:19:31 sendmail[171]: network daemon starting