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Introduction to I/O Control Codes

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I/O control codes (IOCTLs) are used for communication between user-mode applications and drivers, or for communication internally among drivers in a stack. I/O control codes are sent using IRPs.

User-mode applications send IOCTLs to drivers by calling DeviceIoControl, which is described in Microsoft Windows SDK documentation. Calls to DeviceIoControl cause the I/O manager to create an IRP_MJ_DEVICE_CONTROL request and send it to the topmost driver.

Additionally, upper-level drivers can send IOCTLs to lower-level drivers by creating and sending IRP_MJ_DEVICE_CONTROL or IRP_MJ_INTERNAL_DEVICE_CONTROL requests. Drivers process these requests in DispatchDeviceControl and DispatchInternalDeviceControl routines. (User-mode applications cannot send IRP_MJ_INTERNAL_DEVICE_CONTROL requests.)

Some IOCTLs are "public" and some are "private". Public IOCTLs are typically system-defined and documented by Microsoft, in either the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) or the Windows SDK. They might be sent by means of a user-mode component's calls to DeviceIoControl, or they might be sent from one kernel-mode driver to another, using IRP_MJ_DEVICE_CONTROL or IRP_MJ_INTERNAL_DEVICE_CONTROL requests. Examples of public IOCTLs include SCSI Port I/O Control Codes and I8042prt Mouse Internal Device Control Requests.

Private IOCTLs, on the other hand, are meant to be used exclusively by a vendor's software components to communicate with each other. Private IOCTLs are typically defined in a vendor-supplied header file and are not publicly documented. Like public IOCTLs, they might be sent by means of a user-mode component's calls to DeviceIoControl, or they might be sent from one kernel-mode driver to another, using IRP_MJ_DEVICE_CONTROL or IRP_MJ_INTERNAL_DEVICE_CONTROL requests.

There is no difference between the coding of public and private IOCTLs. There are, however, differences in the internal codes that can be used in vendor-defined IOCTLs, compared with those that are used for system-defined IOCTLs. If the available public IOCTLs do not fit your needs, you can define new private IOCTLs that your software components can use to communicate with one another. For more information, see Defining I/O Control Codes.