Managing Network Adapters

IP Helper provides capabilities for managing network adapters. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the interfaces and adapters on a given computer. An interface is an IP-level abstraction, whereas an adapter is a datalink-level abstraction.

Use the functions described in the following paragraphs to retrieve information about the network adapters in the local computer.

The GetAdaptersInfo function returns an array of IP_ADAPTER_INFO structures, one for each adapter in the local computer. The GetPerAdapterInfo function returns additional information about a specific adapter. The GetPerAdapterInfo function requires the caller to specify the index of the adapter. To obtain the adapter index from the adapter name, use the GetAdapterIndex function.

Some applications use adapters that receive datagrams, but cannot transmit them. To obtain information about these adapters, use the GetUniDirectionalAdapterInfo function.

The GetAdaptersAddresses function enables you to retrieve the IP addresses associated with a particular adapter. This function supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addressing.

• For code samples involving GetAdaptersInfo see Managing Network Adapters Using GetAdaptersInfo.