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The files passed between acfg utilities and netconfig are similar to AOF files. Acfg files are an AOF overlay with a small amount of additional information. Values are written by the acfg utility into an output file that overrides the corresponding values in the driver's AOF file.
The ADAPTER: section contains the name of the AOF file that describes this adapter. If the driver provides multiple AOF files, this value is used to select the one to use.
For example, if a driver's AOF directory contains AOFs for two different ISA adapters, named model1234 and ultrafast, acfg should write the following into its output acfg file when it finds a model 1234 adapter:
ADAPTER:
...
AOF=model1234
Attributes written by an acfg to its output file
in a particular section
override the attributes with that name
in the same section of the AOF file.
Many acfg utilities
write out a more specific description of the adapter,
such as including the board revision
or actual model of the adapter.
The acfg can override
the KEY, REQUIRED,
and ADVANCED attributes
in the ADAPTER: section
of the AOF to add or remove configurable options.
For example,
the model 1234-A includes a software configurable option
that sets the number of wait states on the board
but all other variants of the model1234 do not.
If the acfg utility finds a model 1234-A,
it can override the ADAPTER: ADVANCED field
in the AOF and add the WAITSTATE attribute.
Other sections in the acfg output file contain the values for the adapter's configuable options. These values are passed in the SELECT attribute in the relevant section. For example, there are three options for the model1234 adapter: BASE_IO, IRQ, and RAM. These are all software configurable, so the acfg output file contains the following when a model1234 adaper is found:
BASE_IO:
SELECT=240
IRQ:
SELECT=7
RAM:
SELECT=d0000(64)
ADAPTER:
AOF=model1234
The rest of the configuration information about the adapter is found in the AOF file.