Networking Architecture

Updated: April 19, 2023

As with other service-providing processes in the QNX Neutrino RTOS, the networking services execute outside the kernel. Developers are presented with a single unified interface, regardless of the configuration and number of networks involved.

This architecture allows:

network drivers to be started and stopped dynamically
Qnet and other protocols to run together in any combination

Our native network subsystem consists of the network manager executable (io-pkt-v4-hc or io-pkt-v6-hc), plus one or more shared library modules. These modules can include protocols (e.g., lsm-qnet.so) and drivers (e.g., devnp-speedo.so).

Note: The High-Performance Networking Stack (io-sock) is available as an alternative to io-pkt. Systems can use io-pkt or io-sock, but not both. For more information, see the High-Performance Networking Stack User's Guide.