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Relationships Between NET_BUFFER_LIST Generations

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Driver writers should understand and maintain the relationship between the parent (original) NET_BUFFER_LIST structures and the child (derived) structures that result from clone, fragment, and reassemble operations.

The caller of a clone/fragment/reassemble function maintains the parent/child relationship, including the parent pointer in the child NET_BUFFER_LIST structure and a child count. The child count ensures that the caller frees the parent after all the children have been freed. The following rules apply:

  • After a driver creates child structures from a NET_BUFFER_LIST structure, it should retain the ownership of the parent structure and should pass the child structures to other drivers. The driver should never pass the parent NET_BUFFER_LIST structure to another driver.

  • A driver should only update the child count in the parent NET_BUFFER_LIST structure. Because the parent structure is never passed to another driver, there is no risk that the value of the child count could be overwritten. The driver should set the parent pointer in the child structures to point to the parent structure.

  • When a driver receives a NET_BUFFER_LIST from another driver, the driver must not overwrite the parent pointer. If the received NET_BUFFER_LIST structure is a child, its parent pointer should be set already. The driver can use the NET_BUFFER_LIST received from another driver as a parent structure.

  • NDIS does not enforce the preceding rules. The current owner of a NET_BUFFER_LIST structure must manage the child count and parent pointer. For example, if the current owner will both clone and fragment a NET_BUFFER_LIST structure, it must manage the parent pointer and child counter.

  • NDIS sets the child count to zero and the parent pointer to NULL when it allocates a NET_BUFFER_LIST structure. NDIS does not change these fields each time a driver passes a NET_BUFFER_LIST structure to another driver.

Derived NET_BUFFER_LIST Structures