Method and system for attaching a USB network adapter supporting both RNDIS and non-RNDIS capable operating systems

摘要

A method and system for attaching a universal serial bus (USB) network adapter that supports both a remote network drive interface specification (RNDIS) capable operating system such as Windows or non-RNDIS capable operating system, such as GPL Linux or Apple Mac OS. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a USB network adapter device is provided with two USB configurations, where the first configuration describes a device that supports the RNDIS protocol (for Windows machines), and the second configuration describes a device that supports the CDC-Ethernet protocol (for non-Windows machines—Linux, Apple Macs). In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a device having a single function is provided with multiple configuration to support client drivers of multiple different operating systems without the need of disconnecting or reconfiguring the device. In other words, the device supports two different ethernet traffic encapsulating protocols (RNDIS and CDC-Ethernet) together. Accordingly, the host operating system can dynamically choose which protocol to use.