Chapter 14. Network Drivers

We are now through discussing char and block drivers and are ready to move on to the fascinating world of networking. Network interfaces are the third standard class of Linux devices, and this chapter describes how they interact with the rest of the kernel.

The role of a network interface within the system is similar to that of a mounted block device. A block device registers its features in the blk_dev array and other kernel structures, and it then "transmits" and "receives" blocks on request, by means of its request function. Similarly, a network interface must register itself in specific data structures in order to be invoked when packets are exchanged with the outside world.