INTRO (9) NetBSD Kernel Developer's Manual INTRO (9) NAME ...

MBUF (9) NetBSD Kernel Developer’s Manual MBUF (9)DESCRIPTIONThe mbuf functions and macros provide an easy and consistent way to handle a networking stack’s memorymanagement needs. An mbuf consists of a header and a data area. It is of a fixed size, MSIZE (defined in〈machine/param.h〉 ), which includes overhead. The header contains a pointer to the next mbuf in the‘mbuf chain’, a pointer to the next ‘mbuf chain’, a pointer to the data area, the amount of data in this mbuf,its type and a flags field.The type variable can signify:MT_FREE the mbuf should be on the ‘‘free’’ listMT_DATA data was dynamically allocatedMT_HEADER data is a packet headerMT_SONAME data is a socket nameMT_SOOPTS data is socket optionsMT_FTABLE data is the fragment reassembly headerMT_CONTROL mbuf contains ancillary (protocol control) dataMT_OOBDATA mbuf contains out-of-band data.The flags variable contains information describing the mbuf, notably:M_EXT has external storageM_PKTHDR is start of recordM_EOR is end of recordM_CLUSTER external storage is a cluster.If an mbuf designates the start of a record ( M_PKTHDR ), its flags field may contain additional informationdescribing the content of the record:M_BCAST sent/received aslink-level broadcastM_MCAST sent/received aslink-level multicastM_LINK0,M_LINK1,M_LINK2 three link-level specific flags.An mbuf may add a single ‘mbuf cluster’ of MCLBYTES bytes ( also defined in 〈machine/param.h〉 ),which has no additional overhead and is used instead of the internal data area; this is done when at leastMINCLSIZE bytes of data must be stored.When the M_EXT flag is raised for an mbuf, the external storage area could be shared among multiple mbufs.Be careful when you attempt to overwrite the data content of the mbuf.m_get(int nowait , int type)Allocates an mbuf and initializes it to contain internal data. The nowait parameter is a choiceof M_WAIT / M_DONTWAIT from caller. M_WAIT means the call cannot fail, but may takeforever. The type parameter is an mbuf type.m_getclr(int nowait , int type)Allocates an mbuf and initializes it to contain internal data, then zeros the data area. Thenowait parameter is a choice of M_WAIT / M_DONTWAIT from caller. The type parameteris an mbuf type.m_gethdr(int nowait , int type)Allocates an mbuf and initializes it to contain a packet header and internal data. The nowaitparameter is a choice of M_WAIT / M_DONTWAIT from caller. The type parameter is anmbuf type.m_devget(char ∗buf , int totlen , int off0 , struct ifnet ∗ifp , void(∗copy)(const void ∗, void ∗, size_t))Copies len bytes from device local memory into mbufs using copy routine copy. IfparameterNetBSD 3.0 March 24, 2008 3