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Processing IRPs in a Lowest-Level Driver

  • Article

Lowest-level physical drivers have certain standard routines that higher-level drivers do not need. The set of standard routines for lowest-level drivers also varies according to the following criteria:

  • The nature of the device each driver controls

  • Whether the driver sets up its device objects for direct or buffered I/O

  • The design of the individual driver

To illustrate the roles of the standard driver routines, the following figure shows the path a sample IRP might take as it is processed by a lowest-level mass-storage device driver. The driver in the figure has the following characteristics:

  • The device generates interrupts at the end of each I/O operation, so this driver has ISR and DpcForIsr routines.

  • The driver has a StartIo routine, rather than setting up internal queues for IRPs and managing its own queuing.

  • The driver uses system DMA, so it sets its device objects' Flags for direct I/O, and has an AdapterControl routine.

diagram illustrating an irp path through lowest-level driver routines.

As this figure shows, the I/O manager creates an IRP and sends it to the driver's dispatch routine for the given major function code. Assuming the function code is either IRP_MJ_READ or IRP_MJ_WRITE, the dispatch routine is DDDispatchReadWrite.

Calling IoGetCurrentIrpStackLocation

Any driver routine that requires IRP parameters must call IoGetCurrentIrpStackLocation to obtain the driver's I/O stack location. Such routines include dispatch routines that handle more than one major I/O function code (IRP_MJ_*XXX), handle a function that supports minor functions (IRP_MN_XXX), or handle device I/O control requests (*IRP_MJ_DEVICE_CONTROL and/or IRP_MJ_INTERNAL_DEVICE_CONTROL), along with every other driver routine that processes an IRP.

This driver's I/O stack location is the lowest one, with an indefinite number of higher-level drivers' I/O stack locations shown shaded. For simplicity, calls to IoGetCurrentIrpStackLocation from the DispatchReadWrite, StartIo, AdapterControl, and DpcForIsr routines are not shown in the previous figure.

Calling IoMarkIrpPending and IoStartPacket

The sample driver does not complete the IRP in its dispatch routine, but instead processes the IRP in its StartIo routine. Before it can do so, the dispatch routine calls IoMarkIrpPending to indicate that the IRP is not yet completed. Then it calls IoStartPacket to queue the IRP for further processing by the driver's StartIo routine. The dispatch routine also returns the NTSTATUS value STATUS_PENDING.

The following figure illustrates the call to IoStartPacket.

diagram illustrating a call to iostartpacket.

If the driver is busy processing another IRP on the device, IoStartPacket inserts the IRP into the device queue associated with the device object. The driver can optionally supply a Key value as a parameter to IoStartPacket to impose a driver-determined order on IRPs in the device queue.

If the driver is not busy and the device queue is empty, the I/O manager immediately calls its StartIo routine, passing the input IRP.

For mass-storage devices, the lowest-level driver does not need to supply a Cancel routine when it calls IoStartPacket for two reasons:

  1. A file system layered over such a driver typically handles the cancellation of file I/O requests.

  2. Mass-storage device drivers process IRPs quickly.

Usually, the highest-level driver in a chain of layered drivers handles the cancellation of IRPs.

Calling AllocateAdapterChannel and MapTransfer

Assuming the StartIo routine, shown in the figure illustrating an IRP path through lowest-level driver routines, determines that the transfer request can be done by a single DMA operation, the StartIo routine calls AllocateAdapterChannel with the entry point of the driver's AdapterControl routine and the IRP.

When the system DMA controller is available, the I/O manager calls the driver's AdapterControl routine to set up the transfer operation. The AdapterControl routine calls MapTransfer to set up the system DMA controller. Then the driver programs its device for the DMA operation and returns. (For more information about using DMA and adapter objects, see Input/Output Techniques.)

Calling IoRequestDpc from the Driver's ISR

When the device interrupts to indicate its transfer operation is complete, the driver's ISR stops the device from generating interrupts and calls IoRequestDpc, as shown in the figure illustrating an IRP path through lowest-level driver routines.

This call queues the driver's DpcForIsr routine to complete as much of the transfer operation as possible at a lower hardware priority (IRQL).

Calling IoStartNextPacket and IoCompleteRequest

When the DpcForIsr routine has finished processing the transfer, it calls IoStartNextPacket promptly so that the driver's StartIo routine will be called with the next IRP in the device queue, if any are queued. The DpcForIsr routine also sets the just-completed IRP's I/O status block and then calls IoCompleteRequest for the IRP.

The following figure illustrates this driver's calls to IoStartNextPacket and IoCompleteRequest.

calling iostartnextpacket and iocompleterequest.

Drivers should call IoStartNextPacket or IoStartNextPacketByKey to begin the next requested I/O operation as soon as possible, preferably before they call IoCompleteRequest.

If any IRPs are queued for the device, IoStartNextPacket calls KeRemoveDeviceQueue to remove the next IRP from the queue. The I/O manager then calls the driver's StartIo routine, passing the dequeued IRP. If no IRPs are currently in the device queue, IoStartNextPacket merely returns to the caller.

Setting the I/O Status Block in an IRP

Every lowest-level driver must set the IRP's I/O status block before calling IoCompleteRequest. (In the previous figure, the second shaded area denotes the status block.) The I/O status block supplies information to higher-level drivers and, ultimately, to the original requester of the I/O operation. Any higher-level driver layered above the driver in the previous figure might have set up an IoCompletion routine that reads the I/O status block set by this driver. Higher-level drivers usually do not modify the I/O status block in an IRP that has been completed by a device driver, unless the higher-level driver is retrying the IRP, in which case it reinitializes the I/O status block.

Every higher-level driver that completes an IRP without sending it on to the next lower driver also must set the I/O status block in that IRP before calling IoCompleteRequest. For good overall I/O throughput, a higher-level driver should check the parameters in its own I/O stack location of each IRP and, if the parameters are invalid, should set the I/O status block and complete the request itself. Whenever possible, a driver should avoid passing an invalid request on to lower drivers in the chain.

Assuming the transfer operation in the previous figure is successful, the DpcForIsr routine, shown in the figure illustrating an IRP path through lowest-level driver routines, sets STATUS_SUCCESS in Status and the number of bytes transferred in Information for the IRP's I/O status block.

Many of the standard driver routines also return NTSTATUS-type values. For more information about NTSTATUS constants like STATUS_SUCCESS, see Logging Errors.