packet driver

1 definition found

packet driver - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  packet driver
  
     <networking> IBM PC local area network software that
     divides data into packets which it routes to the network.
     It also handles incoming data, reassembling the packets so
     that application programs can read the data as a continuous
     stream.
  
     FTP Software created the specification for IBM PC packet
     drivers but Crynwr Software dominate the market and have
     done the vast majority of the implementations.
  
     Packet drivers provide a simple, common programming interface
     that allows multiple applications to share a network interface
      at the data link layer.  Packet drivers
     demultiplex incoming packets among the applications by using
     the network media's standard packet type or service access point
      field(s).
  
     The packet driver provides calls to initiate access to a
     specific packet type, to end access to it, to send a packet,
     to get statistics on the network interface and to get
     information about the interface.
  
     Protocol implementations that use the packet driver can
     coexist and can make use of one another's services, whereas
     multiple applications which do not use the driver do not
     coexist on one machine properly.  Through use of the packet
     driver, a user could run TCP/IP, XNS and a proprietary
     protocol implementation such as DECnet, Banyan's,
     LifeNet's, Novell's or 3Com's without the difficulties
     associated with pre-empting the network interface.
  
     Applications which use the packet driver can also run on new
     network hardware of the same class without being modified;
     only a new packet driver need be supplied.
  
     There are several levels of packet driver.  The first is the
     basic packet driver, which provides minimal functionality but
     should be simple to implement and which uses very few host
     resources.  The basic driver provides operations to broadcast
     and receive packets.  The second driver is the extended packet
     driver, which is a superset of the basic driver.  The extended
     driver supports less commonly used functions of the network
     interface such as multicast, and also gathers statistics on
     use of the interface and makes these available to the
     application.  The third level, the high-performance functions,
     support performance improvements and tuning.
  
     (http://crynwr.com/crynwr/home.html).
  
     (1994-12-05)