Interface_ID(4)                                      Interface_ID(4)


       NAME
             Interface - specify kernel module interface symbols

       SYNOPSIS
             Interface

       DESCRIPTION
             The files in $ROOT/$MACH/etc/conf/interface.d are Installable
             Driver/Tunable Parameters kernel configuration files that
             contain specifications of interfaces and their symbols which
             may be referenced from installed kernel modules.  These
             interface files allow for remapping symbols to alternate
             symbols, thereby facilitating compatibility support for old
             interfaces.

             The name of each file determines the interface name and
             version that it describes.  The filenames must be in the
             following form:

                  name.version

             The idbuild(1M) command uses these files to determine which
             symbols, if any, in the Driver.o files should be remapped to
             different symbol names before linking.  The idbuild(1M)
             command uses the set of $interface lines in a module's
             Master(4) file to determine which Interface files to use.  The
             module is not accepted if it references symbols not covered by
             its $interface lines.

             Interface checking is done at idbuild time for static modules
             and at load time for loadable modules.

             Each interface file contains lines with the following
             whitespace-separated fields:

                  symbol-name
                  new-symbol-name

             The new-symbol-name field is optional.  If present, it
             specifies the alternate symbol to use in place of symbol-name.

             If the same symbol-name appears on multiple lines, the last
             one is used.  The special new-symbol-name, $dropped, can be
             used to drop a previously-listed symbol from the interface.
             This is most useful with $replace.



                           Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc.               Page 1

      Interface_ID(4)                                      Interface_ID(4)


            The following special lines also can appear in Interface
            files:
                 $replace version
                 $depend module-name-list

            The description of each line follows:

           $replace
                   Specifies that this interface is based on a previous
                   version with the same name.  This acts as if the
                   corresponding name.version file were directly included
                   at this point.  Also, it establishes an ordering
                   between versions of an interface.  This ordering is
                   used by idinstall(1M), when converting old Master files
                   that don't have $interface lines, if symbols match
                   multiple interface versions.  In this case, the
                   ``oldest'' version is used.

           $depend
                   Specifies the kernel modules that implement the
                   interface.  These modules are loaded automatically
                   whenever a module that uses this interface is loaded.

      REFERENCES
            idbuild(1M), idinstall(1M), Master(4)























                          Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc.               Page 2