Indicating Changes to the Operational NDIS QoS Parameters

The miniport driver that supports NDIS Quality of Service (QoS) issues an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication when the driver's operational NDIS QoS parameters are resolved for the first time or when they change later. The miniport driver configures the network adapter with these operational parameters to perform QoS packet transmission.

The miniport driver must follow these guidelines for issuing an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication:

• The miniport driver must issue an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication after it has resolved its operational NDIS QoS parameters and configured the network adapter with them.

  Note If the miniport driver is provisioned with proprietary local NDIS QoS parameters in the registry, the driver must issue an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication during or immediately after the call to MiniportInitializeEx. In this case, the driver initializes an NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS structure with its proprietary local NDIS QoS parameter settings.

  For more information about how the driver resolves its operational NDIS QoS parameter settings, see Resolving Operational NDIS QoS Parameters.

• After this initial status indication, the miniport driver should issue an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication when its operational NDIS QoS parameters are changed. For example, the operational NDIS QoS parameters could change under the following conditions:

  • The operational NDIS QoS parameters change because of changes to the local NDIS QoS parameters. These parameters could change through an OID method request of OID_QOS_PARAMETERS or through a management application developed by the independent hardware vendor (IHV).

  • The operational NDIS QoS parameters change because of conflicts with the QoS settings from the remote peer.

    The miniport driver uses the IEEE 802.1Qaz Data Center Bridging Exchange (DCBX) protocol to discover the QoS parameters for a remote peer. If the DCBX Willing state is enabled, the driver must resolve the differences between its QoS parameters and the remote peer's QoS parameters by following the procedures that are defined for the DCBX state engine. For more information about this state engine, refer to the IEEE 802.1Qaz draft standard.

    For more information about the local DCBX Willing state, see Managing the Local DCBX Willing State.

  Note When the miniport driver receives local or remote NDIS QoS parameters, it should not issue an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication if there have been no changes to the operational NDIS QoS parameters. If the driver makes this unnecessary status indication, NDIS may not pass the indication to overlying drivers.

• The miniport driver should issue an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication when it needs to override the local NDIS QoS parameters that were used to resolve the operational NDIS QoS parameters.

  The miniport driver notifies NDIS and the overlying driver that it has overridden the local NDIS QoS parameters by issuing an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication. For this type of indication, the driver must set the appropriate NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_Xxx_CHANGED flags in the Flags member of the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS structure to specify the reason for overriding the local NDIS QoS parameters.

  For more information on how the miniport driver manages the local QoS parameters, see Setting Local NDIS QoS Parameters.

  For more information on how the miniport driver resolves its operational QoS parameters, see Resolving Operational NDIS QoS Parameters.

Note The miniport driver must issue NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indications if its NDIS QoS capabilities are currently enabled through the *QOS keyword standardized INF keyword. For more information, see Standardized INF Keywords for NDIS QoS.

Guidelines for Issuing the NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE Status Indication

The miniport driver follows these steps when it issues the NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication:

1. The miniport driver allocates a buffer that is large enough to contain the following:

   • An NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS structure that contains the NDIS QoS configuration settings as well as global operational parameters for the NDIS QoS traffic classes.

   • An array of NDIS_QOS_CLASSIFICATION_ELEMENT structures. Each of these structures specifies a traffic classification as defined by a packet data pattern (condition) and associated IEEE 802.1p priority level (action). If the network adapter finds a pattern in the transmit, or egress, packet that matches a condition, it assigns the associated priority level to the packet. The adapter also applies the other NDIS QoS policies to the packet based on the priority level.

2. The miniport initializes the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS structure with the operational NDIS QoS parameters. The driver must provide the complete set of operational parameters, including those parameters that may not be configured on the network adapter.

   When the miniport driver initializes the Header member, it sets the Type member of Header to NDIS_OBJECT_TYPE_QOS_PARAMETERS. The miniport driver sets the Revision member of Header to NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_REVISION_1 and the Size member to NDIS_SIZEOF_QOS_PARAMETERS_REVISION_1.

   The miniport driver sets the appropriate NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_Xxx_CHANGED flags in the Flags member if the corresponding members contain data that has changed since the miniport driverissued an NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication.

   Note Setting the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_Xxx_CHANGED flags is optional. NDIS always assumes that the members of the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS are current even if they have not changed from the previous NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE status indication.

   For more information on how to set the Flags member, see Guidelines for Setting the Flags Member.

3. The miniport driver initializes an NDIS_QOS_CLASSIFICATION_ELEMENT structure for each traffic classification from the operational NDIS QoS parameters. The driver adds these elements at the end of the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS structure in the buffer.

   Note The miniport driver must not set the NDIS_QOS_CLASSIFICATION_ENFORCED_BY_MINIPORT flag in the Flags member of any NDIS_QOS_CLASSIFICATION_ELEMENT structures.

   The driver sets the NumClassificationElements member of the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS structure to the number of classification elements in the array. The driver sets the FirstClassificationElementOffset member to the byte offset of the first element from the start of the buffer. The driver also sets the ClassificationElementSize member to the length, in bytes, of each element in the array.

   Note Starting with NDIS 6.30, the miniport driver must set the ClassificationElementSize member to sizeof(NDIS_QOS_CLASSIFICATION_ELEMENT).

4. The miniport driver initializes an NDIS_STATUS_INDICATION structure for the status indication in the following way:

   • The StatusCode member must be set to NDIS_STATUS_QOS_OPERATIONAL_PARAMETERS_CHANGE.

   • The StatusBuffer member must be set to the pointer to the buffer that contains the operational NDIS QoS parameters.

   • The StatusBufferSize member must be set to the length, in bytes, of the buffer.

5. The miniport driver issues the status indication by calling NdisMIndicateStatusEx. The driver must pass a pointer to the NDIS_STATUS_INDICATION structure to the StatusIndication parameter.

Guidelines for Setting the Flags Member

The miniport driver sets the following flags in the Flags member of the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS structure to specify which operational NDIS QoS parameters have been configured or changed on the network adapter:

NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_ETS_CONFIGURED
If this flag is set, the miniport driver has configured the network adapter with the ETS parameters contained in the following members:

• NumTrafficClasses

• PriorityAssignmentTable

• TcBandwidthAssignmentTable

• TsaAssignmentTable

Note The miniport driver must support ETS in order to support NDIS QoS for DCB. However, the setting of this flag does not specify whether the network adapter supports ETS. Instead, the setting of this flag specifies only whether ETS parameters are configured on the network adapter.

NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_ETS_CHANGED
If this flag is set, one or more ETS parameters have changed in the following members:

• NumTrafficClasses

• PriorityAssignmentTable

• TcBandwidthAssignmentTable

• TsaAssignmentTable

NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_PFC_CONFIGURED
If this flag is set, the miniport driver has configured the network adapter with the PFC settings contained in the PfcEnable member.

Note The miniport driver must support PFC in order to support NDIS QoS for DCB. The setting of this flag does not specify whether the network adapter supports PFC. Instead, the setting of this flag specifies only whether PFC parameters are enabled on the network adapter.

NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_PFC_CHANGED
If this flag is set, one or more PFC settings have changed in the PfcEnable member.

NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_CLASSIFICATION_CONFIGURED
If this flag is set, the miniport driver has configured the network adapter with the QoS traffic classifications parameters specified in the following members:

• NumClassificationElements

• ClassificationElementSize

• FirstClassificationElementOffset

NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_CLASSIFICATION_CHANGED
If this flag is set, one or more QoS traffic classification parameters have changed in the following members:

• NumClassificationElements

• ClassificationElementSize

• FirstClassificationElementOffset

Note The NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_Xxx_CONFIGURED flags must be set if the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS structure contains NDIS QoS parameter settings. The miniport driver must set these flags regardless of whether the settings have changed. However, the driver must set the NDIS_QOS_PARAMETERS_Xxx_CHANGED flags only for those settings that have changed.