Network problem on ARM

[Sebastian Huber]

Hi,
I currently write a driver for the Ethernet interface on a LPC2478 with
a ARM7TMDI-S core.  For this core word (= 4 bytes) load and store
operations must be word aligned.  The DMA controller of the Ethernet
interface has no alignment restrictions.

I encountered now a nasty problem in the receiver path.  At first I took
a mbuf and instructed the DMA to copy a new Ethernet packet directly to
the data start address of the mbuf.  The size of the Ethernet header is
14 bytes (2 * 6 bytes for the MAC addresses and 2 bytes for the type
field).  The mbuf data start address was always word aligned so the
succeeding IP header was now only halfword aligned.

The IP header structure is declared as:

struct ip {
  u_char  ip_vhl;
  u_char  ip_tos;
  u_short ip_len;
  u_short ip_id;
  u_short ip_off;
  u_char  ip_ttl;
  u_char  ip_p;
  u_short ip_sum;
  struct  in_addr ip_src, ip_dst;
} __packed __aligned(4);

Thus the IP source and destination addresses are word aligned within
this structure and the GCC generates word load and store operations.
This lead to wrong address values since the structure was only half word
aligned within the Ethernet packet.

What is the standard way to receive a Ethernet packet?  Do I have to use
two mbufs, one for the Ethernet header and one for the IP packet? Is it
possible to modify the start address of the mbuf such that the IP header
is proper aligned?  Has the data start address of a fresh mbuf a defined
alignment guarantee?  If I modify the data start address of a mbuf do I
have to undo this before I free this modified mbuf?

Thanks!

-- 
Sebastian Huber, Embedded Brains GmbH

Address : Obere Lagerstr. 30, D-82178 Puchheim, Germany
Phone   : +49 89 18 90 80 79-6
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E-Mail  : sebastian.huber at embedded-brains.de
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