Virtual Connection Context (NDIS 5.1)
Note NDIS 5. x has been deprecated and is superseded by NDIS 6. x. For new NDIS driver development, see Network Drivers Starting with Windows Vista. For information about porting NDIS 5. x drivers to NDIS 6. x, see Porting NDIS 5.x Drivers to NDIS 6.0.
Before making a call, a connection-oriented client requests a connection-oriented miniport driver to set up a virtual connection (VC) over which packets can be transmitted and/or received. Similarly, before indicating an incoming call to a connection-oriented client, a call manager or integrated miniport call manager (MCM) driver requests the miniport driver to set up a VC for the incoming call. A virtual connection is a logical connection between two connection-oriented entities. Connection-oriented transmissions and receptions always occur on a specific VC.
A connection-oriented miniport driver maintains state information in a miniport driver-allocated context area about each VC that it sets up. This per-VC context is maintained by the miniport driver and is opaque to NDIS and to protocol drivers. In its MiniportCoCreateVc function, a connection-oriented miniport driver passes a handle to the VC context area to NDIS, and NDIS passes an NdisVcHandlethat uniquely identifies the created VC back to the miniport driver, to the appropriate connection-oriented client, and to the call manager or integrated miniport call manager (MCM) driver.
Before data can be sent or received on a VC, the VC must be activated. The call manager initiates activation of the VC by calling Ndis(M)CmActivateVc and passing call parameters that include the characteristics of the VC to be activated. In response to this call, NDIS calls the miniport driver's MiniportCoActivateVc function, which activates the VC.
After a call is complete or a VC is otherwise not needed, the call manager can deactivate the VC by calling Ndis(M)CmDeactivateVc, which causes NDIS to call the miniport driver's MiniportCoDeactivateVc function. Either the connection-oriented client or the call manager can initiate the deletion of the VC by calling NdisCoDeleteVc, which causes NDIS to call the miniport driver's MiniportCoDeleteVcfunction.
For more information about miniport driver operations on VCs, see Operations on VCs.