linux/net/packet
Neil Horman 977750076d af_packet: add interframe drop cmsg (v6)
Add Ancilliary data to better represent loss information

I've had a few requests recently to provide more detail regarding frame loss
during an AF_PACKET packet capture session.  Specifically the requestors want to
see where in a packet sequence frames were lost, i.e. they want to see that 40
frames were lost between frames 302 and 303 in a packet capture file.  In order
to do this we need:

1) The kernel to export this data to user space
2) The applications to make use of it

This patch addresses item (1).  It does this by doing the following:

A) Anytime we drop a frame for which we would increment po->stats.tp_drops, we
also no increment a stats called po->stats.tp_gap.

B) Every time we successfully enqueue a frame to sk_receive_queue, we record the
value of po->stats.tp_gap in skb->mark.  skb->cb would nominally be the place to
record this, but since all the space there is used up, we're overloading
skb->mark.  Its safe to do since any enqueued packet is guaranteed to be
unshared at this point, and skb->mark isn't used for anything else in the rx
path to the application.  After we record tp_gap in the skb, we zero
po->stats.tp_gap.  This allows us to keep a counter of the number of frames lost
between any two enqueued packets

C) When the application goes to dequeue a frame from the packet socket, we look
at skb->mark for that frame.  If it is non-zero, we add a cmsg chunk to the
msghdr of level SOL_PACKET and type PACKET_GAPDATA.  Its a 32 bit integer that
represents the number of frames lost between this packet and the last previous
frame received.

Note there is a chance that if there is frame loss after a receive, and then the
socket is closed, some gap data might be lost.  This is covered by the use of
the PACKET_AUXDATA socket option, which gives total loss data.  With a bit of
math, the final gap can be determined that way.

I've tested this patch myself, and it works well.

Signed-off-by: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>

 include/linux/if_packet.h |    2 ++
 net/packet/af_packet.c    |   33 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 35 insertions(+)
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
2009-10-05 00:21:55 -07:00
..
Kconfig [NET]: move config options out to individual protocols 2005-07-11 21:13:56 -07:00
Makefile Linux-2.6.12-rc2 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00
af_packet.c af_packet: add interframe drop cmsg (v6) 2009-10-05 00:21:55 -07:00