Rawether .NET is Here!!!

Introduction

Since its release in 1997 Rawether for Windows has been widely accepted as a framework for development of Windows products that "directly" access NDIS network interface card (NIC) drivers from Win32 applications using a NDIS protocol driver as a "relay" between an application and the NDIS miniport driver.

PCAUSA has been exploring how to integrate the Rawether family with the .NET Framework for some time. Rawether V5.03.16.55 (February, 2003) included some experimental C# sample applications which, in retrospect, were not very good... Since then we have gone through several design and implementation iterations for a .NET Framework API for Rawether.

The Rawether .NET API introduced with Rawether V5.5.18.01 is a .NET Framework API that provides a uniform API between user-mode applications and PCAUSA NDIS drivers. Basically, it is a C# version of the current Rawether 'C' API - but greatly extended.

The Rawether .NET release provides a rich, consistent NDIS user-mode API across the Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 platforms.

Getting Familiar with Rawether .NET

You can examine several kinds of information to get acquainted with Rawether .NET:

Class Library Reference - The Rawether .NET Class Library Reference documentation is now available. You can download the documentation as an HTML Help file from:

Rawether .NET Class Library Reference
http://www.rawether.net/DotNet/ClassRef.zip

Sample C# Application Source Code - For those interested in taking a look at source code, the links below point to sources and output for simple C# console application that exercises the Rawether .NET API. Although the sample is fairly crude, it exercises most NDIS requests that I have had the occasion to be interested in using myself. Of particular interest are that take the complexity out of deciphering a BSSID list and other 802.11 NDIS operations.

EnumTest Console Application C# Code:
EnumTest C# Code

EnumTest Console Application Output:
EnumTest Console Output

NDIScope C# Forms-Based Application - Rawether .NET Build 1802 adds a C# forms-based application that illustrates many of the features of the Rawether .NET API. The application is not very sophisticated (it uses primarily the TabControl and TextBox classes for display), but it does exercise almost all of the NDIS queries that are useful on Windows Ethernet and 802.11 adapters.

Here are links to some screen shots:
(Maximize your browser window to see screen-shot text more clearly)

	General Characteristics Page
	802.11 Characteristics Page

In addition, the NDIScope C# application includes a Capture dialog that is intended to illustrate use of the Rawether .NET receive packet interface. This dialog is modeled very loosely after the well-known TcpDump utility, but is not intended to be complete (that's for customer's to do...). Just enough is implemented to illustrate that Rawether .NET does include a practical .NET packet collection interface.

Here are links to some screen shots:

	Capture Dialog
	Packet Detail Dialog

Download Rawether .NET Sample Executables

Follow the link on the Rawether Central page to download Rawether sample executables - including the C# sample application executables.

Rawether Central

Why .NET?

In case you haven't given .NET much thought, here's an article by Chad Z. Hower that proposes why developers like yourself should care about .NET, even if you are not planning to move to .NET - quite YET...

http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/WhyDotNET.asp

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Last modified: January 23, 2009