The Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) is an

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

(API) for

network interface controller A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter or physical network interface, and by similar terms) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Ear ...

s (NICs).

Specification

It was jointly developed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

and

3Com Corporation 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...

and is mostly used in

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

. However, the

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

NDISwrapper and Project Evil

driver wrapper A driver wrapper is a Wrapper function, subroutine in a software library that functions as an adapter pattern, adapter between an operating system and a driver, such as a device driver, that was not designed for that operating system. It can enable ...

projects allow many NDIS-compliant NICs to be used with

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

and

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is ava ...

. magnussoft ZETA, a derivative of

BeOS BeOS is an operating system for personal computers first developed by Be Inc. in 1990. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was positioned as a multimedia platform that could be used by a substantial population of desktop users an ...

, supports a number of NDIS drivers. The NDIS forms the

logical link control In the IEEE 802 reference model of computer networking, the logical link control (LLC) data communication protocol layer is the upper sublayer of the data link layer (layer 2) of the seven-layer OSI model. The LLC sublayer acts as an interface ...

(LLC) sublayer, which is the upper sublayer of the OSI

data link layer The data link layer, or layer 2, is the second layer of the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking. This layer is the protocol layer that transfers data between nodes on a network segment across the physical layer. The data link layer p ...

(layer 2). Therefore, the NDIS acts as the interface between the

media access control In IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards, the medium access control (MAC, also called media access control) sublayer is the layer that controls the hardware responsible for interaction with the wired, optical or wireless transmission medium. The MAC sublay ...

(MAC) sublayer, which is the lower sublayer of the data link layer, and the

network layer In the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking, the network layer is layer 3. The network layer is responsible for packet forwarding including routing through intermediate routers. Functions The network layer provides the means of tran ...

(layer 3). The NDIS is a library of functions often referred to as a " wrapper" that hides the underlying complexity of the NIC hardware and serves as a standard interface for level 3 network protocol drivers and hardware level MAC drivers. The NDIS versions supported by various Windows versions are as follows: * NDIS 2.0:

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...

, Windows for Workgroups 3.1,

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...

* NDIS 3.0: Windows for Workgroups 3.11 * NDIS 3.1:

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

* NDIS 4.0: Windows 95 OSR2, NT 4.0, Windows CE 3.0 * NDIS 4.1:

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

* NDIS 5.0:

Windows 98 SE Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released ...

, Me,

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

* NDIS 5.1:

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

Server 2003 Server may refer to: Computing * Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and ...

Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...

4.x, 5.0, 6.0 * NDIS 5.2: Windows Server 2003 SP2 * NDIS 6.0:

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

* NDIS 6.1: Windows Vista SP1, Server 2008,

Windows Embedded Compact 7 Windows Embedded Compact 7 (formerly known as Windows Embedded CE 7.0) is the seventh major release of the Windows Embedded CE operating system, released on March 1, 2011. Windows Embedded Compact 7 is a real-time OS, separate from the Window ...

, Windows Embedded Compact 2013 * NDIS 6.20:

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally ...

* NDIS 6.30:

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the sixth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows 8 and succe ...

* NDIS 6.40:

Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...

Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 R2, codenamed "Windows Server 8.1" or "Windows Server Blue", is the seventh version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was unveiled on June 3, 2013 a ...

* NDIS 6.50:

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...

, version 1507 * NDIS 6.60: Windows 10, version 1607 and Windows Server 2016 * NDIS 6.70: Windows 10, version 1703 * NDIS 6.80: Windows 10, version 1709 * NDIS 6.81: Windows 10, version 1803 * NDIS 6.82: Windows 10, version 1809 and

Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2019 is the ninth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the second version of the server operating system based on the Windows 10 platform, ...

* NDIS 6.83: Windows 10, version 1903 and

Windows Server 2022 Windows Server 2022 or Windows Server 2022 Edition is the tenth and latest major long term servicing channel (LTSC) release of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was anno ...

* NDIS 6.84: Windows 10, version 2004 * NDIS 6.85: Windows 10, version 21H2 * NDIS 6.86:

Windows 11 Windows 11 is the latest major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released in October 2021. It is a free upgrade to its predecessor, Windows 10 (2015), and is available for any Windows 10 devices that meet the new Windows 11 ...

, version 21H2 The traffic accepted by the NIC is controlled by an NDIS Miniport Driver while various protocols, such as

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the su ...

, are implemented by NDIS Protocol Drivers. A single miniport may be associated with one or more protocols. This means that traffic coming into the miniport may be received in parallel by several protocol drivers. For example,

Winpcap In the field of computer network administration, pcap is an application programming interface (API) for capturing network traffic. While the name is an abbreviation of ''packet capture'', that is not the API's proper name. Unix-like syste ...

adds a second protocol driver on the selected miniport in order to capture incoming packets. Furthermore, it is possible to simulate several virtual NICs by implementing virtual miniport drivers that send and receive traffic from a single physical NIC. One example of virtual miniport driver usage is to add virtual NICs, each with a different

VLAN A virtual local area network (VLAN) is any broadcast domain that is partitioned and isolated in a computer network at the data link layer (OSI layer 2).IEEE 802.1Q-2011, ''1.4 VLAN aims and benefits'' In this context, virtual, refers to a phys ...

. Because implementations cannot assume that other drivers received the same buffers, one must treat the incoming buffers as read-only and a driver that changes the packet content must allocate its own buffers. NDIS Miniport drivers can also use

Windows Driver Model In computing, the Windows Driver Model (WDM) also known at one point as the Win32 Driver Model is a framework for device drivers that was introduced with Windows 98 and Windows 2000 to replace VxD, which was used on older versions of Windows such ...

interfaces to control network hardware. Another driver type is NDIS Intermediate Driver. Intermediate drivers sit in-between the MAC and IP layers and can control all traffic being accepted by the NIC. In practice, intermediate drivers implement both miniport and protocol interfaces. The miniport driver and protocol driver actually communicate with the corresponding miniport and protocol interfaces that reside in the intermediate driver. This design enables adding several chained intermediate drivers between the miniport and protocol drivers. Therefore, driver vendors cannot assume that the interface that they send traffic to is implemented by the last driver in the chain. In order to write applications using NDIS, one can use samples that accompany Microsoft's

Windows Driver Kit The Windows Driver Kit (WDK) is a software toolset from Microsoft that enables the development of device drivers for the Microsoft Windows platform. It includes documentation, samples, build environments, and tools for driver developers. A com ...

(WDK). The "PassThru" sample is a good starting point for intermediate drivers as it implements all the necessary details required in this driver type, but just passes the traffic through to the next driver in the chain.

References

External links

Windows Core Networking

NDIS Drivers

Microsoft MSDN Design Guide
{{Microsoft APIs Microsoft application programming interfaces Computer networking Device drivers

Specification

See also

References

External links