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I have built and installed the netvmini on windows 7/8. And Im able to ping from one IP to the other. But I have some doubts with respect to its functionality which are listed below:

  1. In which layer does the driver get placed w.r.t OSI layers.
  2. Does the driver route the packets w.r.t the IP addresses given by the Application.
  3. What is the role of NDIS protocol driver.
  4. What is the difference between NDIS protocol driver and miniport driver.

Looking forward to some answers which will be of great help...

Reena Cyril
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1 Answers1

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  1. In the 2nd layer (MAC)
  2. No, routing is done by the IP protocol (3rd layer). MAC layer operates with MAC addresses.
  3. There is no specific role, as is. The role is defined by the driver developer and the location of the driver in the network stack. Protocol drivers are the highest level NDIS drivers and reside above miniport and filter drivers. Therefore, they naturally belong to higher layers of OSI model, e.g. they can implement functionality related to the transport layer (4th layer). See more here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff566823%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
  4. Miniport driver is the lowest driver in the network stack, except for the bus driver. Usually it will implement functionality related to the 2nd layer (MAC). See more here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff565951(v=vs.85).aspx
SomeWittyUsername
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  • Thank you. So, The NDIS protocol driver passes on the data to the miniport driver. In that case, is the NDIS protocol driver already present in the network stack by default? – Reena Cyril Mar 13 '15 at 03:59
  • Well, some components are provided by the OS to complete for the full network stack. For example, the TCP driver is a protocol driver that is part of the OS and binds to the underlying lower-level drivers. – SomeWittyUsername Mar 13 '15 at 07:03