skb_padto and small fragmented transmits
From: Chris Leech <hidden>
Date: 2003-02-05 21:01:17
While looking at the new software padding routines, something caught my eye in skb_padto. It seemed that the fragmented portion of a packet would actually be counted twice when checking to see if padding is needed, as skb->len already includes the count of skb->data_len.
unsigned int size = skb->len + skb->data_len;
I tested this by modifying e1000 to use skb_padto, disabling TCP timestamps, and writing a small app to transmit 4 bytes using sendfile. The resulting packet had 54 bytes of headers, and 4 bytes of data in a separate fragment. Calling skb_padto(skb,60) should have linearized the skb, and zeroed out the first 2 bytes of tailroom. Instead the length was incorrectly calculated as 62 bytes, and the buffer was returned as is. Changing skb_padto to simply use size = skb->len fixed the padding, but then I started seeing incorrect TCP checksums going out. I found this comment in skb_copy_expand that seemed to explain things.
BUG ALERT: ip_summed is not copied. Why does this work? Is it used only by netfilter in the cases when checksum is recalculated? --ANK
So after calling skb_copy_expand the checksum is not recalculated in software, but the checksum offload information is discarded. -- Chris Leech [off-list ref]