0

We have Filter Intermediate Driver implemented in NDIS 5.x (Miniport, Protocol), Since support for this has been removed in NDIS 6.x. I am planning to covert my filter intermediate driver to Mux Intermediate driver with 1 to 1 relationship.

I wanted to take this approach to minimize the cost and schedule while moving to NDIS 6.x, even though NDIS 6.x introduced Light weight Filter Driver.

is there guidence available for Mux Intermediate driver to have 1 to 1 relationship.

Rami
  • 5
  • 3

1 Answers1

0

LWFs are really easy to write. It's probably easier to switch to a LWF than to retrofit your driver as a MUX driver -- even a 1:1 MUX. For example, building a MUX driver requires you to build a usermode notify object. A LWF does not.

LWFs also have better performance, more flexibility, and more features.

Jeffrey Tippet
  • 3,146
  • 1
  • 14
  • 15
  • Thank you Jeffrey, Anther reason to take Mux is to come over a failover issue we have. That is two NIC cards are configured with different IP address. Both should act as redundant channels, since they have two different IP's, data can only be sent/received using either of those NIC cards. Causing the loss of data when one NIC card channel is failed. To fix this, we thought of 1-2 Mux, where data sent to MUX can be routed to two NIC Cards, and the data received by these two NIC cards will be processed and reported to higher OSI stack as if it is received from one. this will fix failover issue. – Rami Jan 18 '17 at 13:56
  • if the failover can be resolved using LWF, then I really would like to take this approach. Your suggestions will really help us in taking the correct approach. – Rami Jan 18 '17 at 14:00
  • Failover can be done with a LWF, but it's better to use a 1:2 MUX. Generally you should have a good separation of functionality. One driver should do one thing: do filtering in a LWF, and do failover in a separate MUX.  It will keep each driver simpler, and it will give you future flexibility to reuse either driver in new solutions. – Jeffrey Tippet Jan 20 '17 at 02:23
  • Thank You Jeffery, We are going with LWF. I have anther question regarding AttachHandler, Will this call back be called for each NIC card connected in the PC, Or this will be called only once. If this be called once for each NIC Card, then I wanted to capture NdisFilterHandle received as parameter and use it in deciding the route to NIC or use it in the send and receive calls. – Rami Jan 24 '17 at 14:15