Chapter 3. Interface Layer
3.1. Introduction
This chapter starts our discussion of Net/3 at the bottom of the protocol stack with the interface layer, which includes the hardware and software that sends and receives packets on locally attached networks.
We use the term device driver to refer to the software that communicates with the hardware and network interface (or just interface) for the hardware and device driver for a particular network.
The Net/3 interface layer attempts to provide a hardware-independent programming interface between the network protocols and the drivers for the network devices connected to a system. The interface layer supports provides for all devices:
a well-defined set of interface functions,
a standard ...
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