🔌Kernel Drivers
How the kernel drivers work and their role in the kernel
Last updated
How the kernel drivers work and their role in the kernel
Last updated
The kernel drivers allows your kernel to provide interfaces for different purposes, from console to filesystem. This is to present the kernel your implementation of different driver types. It's not a device driver, though!
The kernel drivers can be called using either the properties that point to the current driver of each driver type or the GetDriver<TResult>()
function found in the DriverHandler
class under the KS.Drivers
namespace. These two will return an appropriate driver interface that actually allows you to call their functions that each driver of the same type implements. The types of kernel drivers are listed below:
Driver | Interface | Base | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Your kernel modifications should reference local versions of driver properties, like CurrentConsoleDriverLocal
, unless it's not possible.
Each driver contains its own interface containing its own method definitions and their signatures. These interfaces are the ones that you must implement with your mod. The most basic interface for the kernel drivers is IDriver
found in the same namespace, which is implemented by the driver-specific interfaces.
The final driver class implementation must implement both the base driver-specific base class and its interface, such as:
IsBuiltin()
only returns true if the driver is found in the built-in driver list. IsRegistered()
, however, returns true if the driver is either built-in or found in the custom drivers list.
If you have a kernel driver that you wish to register, you'll have to register the kernel driver, passing it the IDriver
interface for your driver and the appropriate type. You can use the RegisterDriver()
function to perform this operation, but you should set the current driver to your driver for the target wrappers, like the methods found in the KS.Files
namespace that call the current filesystem driver, using the SetDriverSafe<T>()
function.
The SetDriver<T>()
function can be used, but doesn't prevent you from using internal drivers. We advice you to use the SetDriverSafe<T>()
function instead.
Be sure to unregister your driver with the UnregisterDriver()
function, or your driver will not get updated in the list of kernel drivers!
If you want to temporarily to use a driver without affecting the entire kernel and its configuration, you can use this feature to temporarily switch drivers of supported types.
Assuming that your mod uses local drivers to do their actions, like CurrentConsoleDriverLocal
, you must use the following functions in order:
BeginLocalDriverSafe<T>()
: This notifies the kernel that the mod is going to use the provided driver temporarily.
EndLocalDriver<T>()
: This notifies the kernel that the mod is done with the temporary driver.
Where T
is the interface type of the driver found in the above table at the start of this page.
The BeginLocalDriver<T>()
function can be used, but doesn't prevent you from using internal drivers. We advice you to use the BeginLocalDriverSafe<T>()
function instead.
Be sure to execute the two above functions in the order specified above. Forgetting to call EndLocalDriver<T>()
after you're done with the driver can cause the kernel to think that the mod is going to use your local driver forever.
Additionally, the driver management API provides you an easy way to get the default driver that the kernel declares. You can use the below functions:
DriverHandler.GetFallbackDriver<TDriverInterfaceType>()
This returns an instance of the default driver that the kernel initialized before drivers get set by the config reader.
DriverHandler.GetFallbackDriverName<TDriverInterfaceType>()
This returns the actual driver name grabbed from the dictionary.
Don't confuse the name given by the GetDriverName()
and its siblings with the name from the driver instance.
If you have a driver interface type or the driver type from the DriverTypes
enumeration, you can request for a current driver either from the available properties or from the GetCurrentDriver()
and GetCurrentDriverLocal()
functions.
GetCurrentDriver()
returns the current driver that's used by the kernel
GetCurrentDriverLocal()
returns the current local driver set by BeginLocalDriver<T>()
or its safe sibling function.
For all the driver management functions, you can also use the non-generic versions where they ask for a DriverTypes
value in their first argument.
The settings -driver
application now lets you set your system-wide kernel drivers up in a completely new section called Kernel driver settings
. It lets you configure current drivers for each supported driver type.
In order to configure your driver, select one of the driver types from the settings section shown above by pressing ENTER
, and select your driver.
You can also use driverman
to change the kernel driver settings for scripting scenarios.
Like all other settings, you must save your kernel settings to apply your changes across reboots.
Random
IRandomDriver
BaseRandomDriver
Random number generator drivers
Console
IConsoleDriver
BaseConsoleDriver
Console drivers
Network
INetworkDriver
BaseNetworkDriver
Network drivers
Filesystem
IFilesystemDriver
BaseFilesystemDriver
Filesystem drivers
Encryption
IEncryptionDriver
BaseEncryptionDriver
Encryption drivers
Regexp
IRegexpDriver
BaseRegexpDriver
Regular expression drivers
DebugLogger
IDebugLoggerDriver
BaseDebugLoggerDriver
Debug logger drivers
Encoding
IEncodingDriver
BaseEncodingDriver
Encoding drivers
HardwareProber
IHardwareProberDriver
BaseHardwareProberDriver
Hardware probing drivers
Sorting
ISortingDriver
BaseSortingDriver
Integer sorting drivers
Input
IInputDriver
BaseInputDriver
Input drivers