Device Driver (2024)

What is a device driver?

A device driver is a special kind of software program that controls a specific hardware device attached to a computer. Device drivers are essential for a computer to work properly.

These programs may be compact, but they provide the all-important means for a computer to interact with hardware, for everything from mouse, keyboard and display -- user input/output -- to working with networks, storage and graphics.

How do device drivers work?

Device drivers generally run at a high level of privilege within the operating system (OS) runtime environment. Some device drivers, in fact, may be linked directly to the operating system kernel, a portion of an OS such as Windows, Linux or macOS, that remains memory resident and handles execution for all other code, including device drivers. Device drivers relay requests for device access and actions from the operating system and its active applications to their respective hardware devices. They also deliver outputs or status/messages from the hardware devices to the operating system and thus to applications.

Purpose of device drivers

Device drivers are necessary to permit a computer to interface and interact with specific devices. They define the messages and mechanisms whereby the computer -- the OS and applications -- can access the device or make requests for the device to fulfill. They also handle device responses and messages for delivery to the computer.

Types of device drivers

Invariably, hardware devices belong to a specific class, such as Bluetooth or 802.11xx wireless networking. Creating any specific device driver starts by working within its class framework. Within that class, a particular type of device, such as Bluetooth audio, keyboards or mice, also falls within a related driver framework.

Finally, for a specific individual device, within its class and type frameworks, its actual driver software interacts with that device using its native command set and data handling capabilities, as defined and published by its maker or manufacturer. In addition, device drivers can access physical devices -- actual hardware -- or virtual devices that are emulations of hardware in a software program. The former are called physical drivers and the latter are called virtual drivers.

Device driver examples

Module Name Display Name Driver Type Link Date ============ ====================== ============= ======================1394ohci 1394 OHCI Compliant Ho Kernel 3ware 3ware Kernel 5/18/2015 5:28:03 PM ACPI Microsoft ACPI Driver Kernel AcpiDev ACPI Devices driver Kernel 
 

Device driver software

In the early days of programming, device drivers would often be written using assembly language, a low-level language that can access hardware and CPU instructions immediately and directly. Today, most programmers who write device drivers work either in the C or C++ programming language, because it offers excellent access to low-level instructions along with more complex program and data structures.

Testing device drivers must incorporate security as well as operational issues. Because such software runs at high levels of privilege, it could lead to system compromise or vulnerabilities on the security side, or outright failure via crashing or freezing and performance problems on the operational side.