MBUF(9) | Kernel Developer's Manual | MBUF(9) |
NAME¶
mbuf — memory management in the kernel IPC subsystemSYNOPSIS¶
#include <sys/param.h>#include <sys/systm.h>
#include <sys/mbuf.h>
Mbuf allocation macros¶
MGET(struct mbuf *mbuf, int how, short type); MGETHDR(struct mbuf *mbuf, int how, short type); MCLGET(struct mbuf *mbuf, int how); MEXTADD(struct mbuf *mbuf, caddr_t buf, u_int size, void (*free)(void *opt_arg1, void *opt_arg2), void *opt_arg1, void *opt_arg2, short flags, int type); MEXTFREE(struct mbuf *mbuf); MFREE(struct mbuf *mbuf, struct mbuf *successor);Mbuf utility macros¶
mtod(struct mbuf *mbuf, type); M_ALIGN(struct mbuf *mbuf, u_int len); MH_ALIGN(struct mbuf *mbuf, u_int len); intM_LEADINGSPACE(struct mbuf *mbuf); int
M_TRAILINGSPACE(struct mbuf *mbuf); M_MOVE_PKTHDR(struct mbuf *to, struct mbuf *from); M_PREPEND(struct mbuf *mbuf, int len, int how); MCHTYPE(struct mbuf *mbuf, u_int type); int
M_WRITABLE(struct mbuf *mbuf);
Mbuf allocation functions¶
struct mbuf *m_get(int how, int type); struct mbuf *
m_getm(struct mbuf *orig, int len, int how, int type); struct mbuf *
m_getcl(int how, short type, int flags); struct mbuf *
m_getclr(int how, int type); struct mbuf *
m_gethdr(int how, int type); struct mbuf *
m_free(struct mbuf *mbuf); void
m_freem(struct mbuf *mbuf);
Mbuf utility functions¶
voidm_adj(struct mbuf *mbuf, int len); void
m_align(struct mbuf *mbuf, int len); int
m_append(struct mbuf *mbuf, int len, c_caddr_t cp); struct mbuf *
m_prepend(struct mbuf *mbuf, int len, int how); struct mbuf *
m_copyup(struct mbuf *mbuf, int len, int dstoff); struct mbuf *
m_pullup(struct mbuf *mbuf, int len); struct mbuf *
m_pulldown(struct mbuf *mbuf, int offset, int len, int *offsetp); struct mbuf *
m_copym(struct mbuf *mbuf, int offset, int len, int how); struct mbuf *
m_copypacket(struct mbuf *mbuf, int how); struct mbuf *
m_dup(struct mbuf *mbuf, int how); void
m_copydata(const struct mbuf *mbuf, int offset, int len, caddr_t buf); void
m_copyback(struct mbuf *mbuf, int offset, int len, caddr_t buf); struct mbuf *
m_devget(char *buf, int len, int offset, struct ifnet *ifp, void (*copy)(char *from, caddr_t to, u_int len)); void
m_cat(struct mbuf *m, struct mbuf *n); u_int
m_fixhdr(struct mbuf *mbuf); void
m_dup_pkthdr(struct mbuf *to, struct mbuf *from); void
m_move_pkthdr(struct mbuf *to, struct mbuf *from); u_int
m_length(struct mbuf *mbuf, struct mbuf **last); struct mbuf *
m_split(struct mbuf *mbuf, int len, int how); int
m_apply(struct mbuf *mbuf, int off, int len, int (*f)(void *arg, void *data, u_int len), void *arg); struct mbuf *
m_getptr(struct mbuf *mbuf, int loc, int *off); struct mbuf *
m_defrag(struct mbuf *m0, int how); struct mbuf *
m_unshare(struct mbuf *m0, int how);
DESCRIPTION¶
An mbuf is a basic unit of memory management in the kernel IPC subsystem. Network packets and socket buffers are stored in mbufs. A network packet may span multiple mbufs arranged into a mbuf chain (linked list), which allows adding or trimming network headers with little overhead. While a developer should not bother with mbuf internals without serious reason in order to avoid incompatibilities with future changes, it is useful to understand the general structure of an mbuf. An mbuf consists of a variable-sized header and a small internal buffer for data. The total size of an mbuf,MSIZE
, is a constant defined in
<sys/param.h>. The
mbuf header includes:
- m_next
- (struct mbuf *) A pointer to the next mbuf in the mbuf chain.
- m_nextpkt
- (struct mbuf *) A pointer to the next mbuf chain in the queue.
- m_data
- (caddr_t) A pointer to data attached to this mbuf.
- m_len
- (int) The length of the data.
- m_type
- (short) The type of the data.
- m_flags
- (int) The mbuf flags.
/* mbuf flags */ #define M_EXT 0x0001 /* has associated external storage */ #define M_PKTHDR 0x0002 /* start of record */ #define M_EOR 0x0004 /* end of record */ #define M_RDONLY 0x0008 /* associated data marked read-only */ #define M_PROTO1 0x0010 /* protocol-specific */ #define M_PROTO2 0x0020 /* protocol-specific */ #define M_PROTO3 0x0040 /* protocol-specific */ #define M_PROTO4 0x0080 /* protocol-specific */ #define M_PROTO5 0x0100 /* protocol-specific */ #define M_PROTO6 0x4000 /* protocol-specific (avoid M_BCAST conflict) */ #define M_FREELIST 0x8000 /* mbuf is on the free list */ /* mbuf pkthdr flags (also stored in m_flags) */ #define M_BCAST 0x0200 /* send/received as link-level broadcast */ #define M_MCAST 0x0400 /* send/received as link-level multicast */ #define M_FRAG 0x0800 /* packet is fragment of larger packet */ #define M_FIRSTFRAG 0x1000 /* packet is first fragment */ #define M_LASTFRAG 0x2000 /* packet is last fragment */
/* mbuf types */ #define MT_DATA 1 /* dynamic (data) allocation */ #define MT_HEADER MT_DATA /* packet header */ #define MT_SONAME 8 /* socket name */ #define MT_CONTROL 14 /* extra-data protocol message */ #define MT_OOBDATA 15 /* expedited data */
M_PKTHDR
flag is set, a struct
pkthdr m_pkthdr is added to the
mbuf header. It contains a pointer to the interface the
packet has been received from (struct ifnet
*rcvif), and the total packet length
(int len). Optionally, it may also
contain an attached list of packet tags (struct m_tag).
See mbuf_tags(9) for details. Fields used in offloading
checksum calculation to the hardware are kept in
m_pkthdr as well. See
HARDWARE-ASSISTED
CHECKSUM CALCULATION for details.
If small enough, data is stored in the internal data buffer of an
mbuf. If the data is sufficiently large, another
mbuf may be added to the mbuf
chain, or external storage may be associated with the
mbuf. MHLEN
bytes of data can
fit into an mbuf with the
M_PKTHDR
flag set, MLEN
bytes
can otherwise.
If external storage is being associated with an mbuf, the
m_ext header is added at the cost of losing the internal
data buffer. It includes a pointer to external storage, the size of the
storage, a pointer to a function used for freeing the storage, a pointer to an
optional argument that can be passed to the function, and a pointer to a
reference counter. An mbuf using external storage has
the M_EXT
flag set.
The system supplies a macro for allocating the desired external storage buffer,
MEXTADD
.
The allocation and management of the reference counter is handled by the
subsystem.
The system also supplies a default type of external storage buffer called an
mbuf cluster. Mbuf clusters can be
allocated and configured with the use of the MCLGET
macro. Each mbuf cluster is
MCLBYTES
in size, where MCLBYTES is a
machine-dependent constant. The system defines an advisory macro
MINCLSIZE
, which is the smallest amount of data to put
into an mbuf cluster. It is equal to the sum of
MLEN
and MHLEN
. It is
typically preferable to store data into the data region of an
mbuf, if size permits, as opposed to allocating a
separate mbuf cluster to hold the same data.
Macros and Functions¶
There are numerous predefined macros and functions that provide the developer with common utilities.- mtod(mbuf, type)
- Convert an mbuf pointer to a data pointer. The macro expands to the data pointer cast to the pointer of the specified type. Note: It is advisable to ensure that there is enough contiguous data in mbuf. See m_pullup() for details.
- MGET(mbuf, how, type)
- Allocate an mbuf and initialize it
to contain internal data. mbuf will point to the
allocated mbuf on success, or be set to
NULL
on failure. The how argument is to be set toM_WAIT
orM_DONTWAIT
. It specifies whether the caller is willing to block if necessary. A number of other functions and macros related to mbufs have the same argument because they may at some point need to allocate new mbufs. Programmers should be careful not to confuse the mbuf allocation flagM_DONTWAIT
with the malloc(9) allocation flag,M_NOWAIT
. They are not the same. - MGETHDR(mbuf, how, type)
- Allocate an mbuf and initialize it to contain a packet header and internal data. See MGET() for details.
- MCLGET(mbuf, how)
- Allocate and attach an mbuf cluster
to mbuf. If the macro fails, the
M_EXT
flag will not be set in mbuf. - M_ALIGN(mbuf, len)
- Set the pointer mbuf->m_data to place an object of the size len at the end of the internal data area of mbuf, long word aligned. Applicable only if mbuf is newly allocated with MGET() or m_get().
- MH_ALIGN(mbuf, len)
- Serves the same purpose as M_ALIGN() does, but only for mbuf newly allocated with MGETHDR() or m_gethdr(), or initialized by m_dup_pkthdr() or m_move_pkthdr().
- m_align(mbuf, len)
- Services the same purpose as M_ALIGN() but handles any type of mbuf.
- M_LEADINGSPACE(mbuf)
- Returns the number of bytes available before the beginning of data in mbuf.
- M_TRAILINGSPACE(mbuf)
- Returns the number of bytes available after the end of data in mbuf.
- M_PREPEND(mbuf, len, how)
- This macro operates on an mbuf
chain. It is an optimized wrapper for m_prepend()
that can make use of possible empty space before data (e.g. left after
trimming of a link-layer header). The new mbuf chain
pointer or
NULL
is in mbuf after the call. - M_MOVE_PKTHDR(to, from)
- Using this macro is equivalent to calling m_move_pkthdr(to, from).
- M_WRITABLE(mbuf)
- This macro will evaluate true if
mbuf is not marked
M_RDONLY
and if either mbuf does not contain external storage or, if it does, then if the reference count of the storage is not greater than 1. TheM_RDONLY
flag can be set in mbuf->m_flags. This can be achieved during setup of the external storage, by passing theM_RDONLY
bit as a flags argument to the MEXTADD() macro, or can be directly set in individual mbufs. - MCHTYPE(mbuf, type)
- Change the type of mbuf to type. This is a relatively expensive operation and should be avoided.
- m_get(how, type)
- A function version of MGET() for non-critical paths.
- m_getm(orig, len, how, type)
- Allocate len bytes worth of
mbufs and mbuf clusters if
necessary and append the resulting allocated mbuf
chain to the mbuf chain
orig, if it is
non-
NULL
. If the allocation fails at any point, free whatever was allocated and returnNULL
. If orig is non-NULL
, it will not be freed. It is possible to use m_getm() to either append len bytes to an existing mbuf or mbuf chain (for example, one which may be sitting in a pre-allocated ring) or to simply perform an all-or-nothing mbuf and mbuf cluster allocation. - m_gethdr(how, type)
- A function version of MGETHDR() for non-critical paths.
- m_getcl(how, type, flags)
- Fetch an mbuf with a
mbuf cluster attached to it. If one of the
allocations fails, the entire allocation fails. This routine is the
preferred way of fetching both the mbuf and
mbuf cluster together, as it avoids having to
unlock/relock between allocations. Returns
NULL
on failure. - m_getclr(how, type)
- Allocate an mbuf and zero out the data region.
- m_free(mbuf)
- Frees mbuf. Returns m_next of the freed mbuf.
- m_freem(mbuf)
- Free an entire mbuf chain, including any external storage.
- m_adj(mbuf, len)
- Trim len bytes from the head of an mbuf chain if len is positive, from the tail otherwise.
- m_append(mbuf, len, cp)
- Append len bytes of data cp to the mbuf chain. Extend the mbuf chain if the new data does not fit in existing space.
- m_prepend(mbuf, len, how)
- Allocate a new mbuf and prepend it
to the mbuf chain, handle
M_PKTHDR
properly. Note: It does not allocate any mbuf clusters, so len must be less thanMLEN
orMHLEN
, depending on theM_PKTHDR
flag setting. - m_copyup(mbuf, len, dstoff)
- Similar to m_pullup() but copies
len bytes of data into a new mbuf at
dstoff bytes into the mbuf. The
dstoff argument aligns the data and leaves room for
a link layer header. Returns the new mbuf chain on
success, and frees the mbuf chain and returns
NULL
on failure. Note: The function does not allocate mbuf clusters, so len + dstoff must be less thanMHLEN
. - m_pullup(mbuf, len)
- Arrange that the first len bytes of
an mbuf chain are contiguous and lay in the data
area of mbuf, so they are accessible with
mtod(mbuf,
type). It is important to remember that this may
involve reallocating some mbufs and moving data so all pointers
referencing data within the old mbuf chain must be recalculated or made
invalid. Return the new mbuf chain on success,
NULL
on failure (the mbuf chain is freed in this case). Note: It does not allocate any mbuf clusters, so len must be less thanMHLEN
. - m_pulldown(mbuf, offset, len, offsetp)
- Arrange that len bytes between offset and offset + len in the mbuf chain are contiguous and lay in the data area of mbuf, so they are accessible with mtod(mbuf, type). len must be smaller than, or equal to, the size of an mbuf cluster. Return a pointer to an intermediate mbuf in the chain containing the requested region; the offset in the data region of the mbuf chain to the data contained in the returned mbuf is stored in *offsetp. If offp is NULL, the region may be accessed using mtod(mbuf, type). If offp is non-NULL, the region may be accessed using mtod(mbuf, uint8_t, +, *offsetp). The region of the mbuf chain between its beginning and off is not modified, therefore it is safe to hold pointers to data within this region before calling m_pulldown().
- m_copym(mbuf, offset, len, how)
- Make a copy of an mbuf chain
starting offset bytes from the beginning, continuing
for len bytes. If len is
M_COPYALL
, copy to the end of the mbuf chain. Note: The copy is read-only, because the mbuf clusters are not copied, only their reference counts are incremented. - m_copypacket(mbuf, how)
- Copy an entire packet including header, which must be present. This is an optimized version of the common case m_copym(mbuf, 0, M_COPYALL, how). Note: the copy is read-only, because the mbuf clusters are not copied, only their reference counts are incremented.
- m_dup(mbuf, how)
- Copy a packet header mbuf chain into a completely new mbuf chain, including copying any mbuf clusters. Use this instead of m_copypacket() when you need a writable copy of an mbuf chain.
- m_copydata(mbuf, offset, len, buf)
- Copy data from an mbuf chain starting off bytes from the beginning, continuing for len bytes, into the indicated buffer buf.
- m_copyback(mbuf, offset, len, buf)
- Copy len bytes from the buffer buf back into the indicated mbuf chain, starting at offset bytes from the beginning of the mbuf chain, extending the mbuf chain if necessary. Note: It does not allocate any mbuf clusters, just adds mbufs to the mbuf chain. It is safe to set offset beyond the current mbuf chain end: zeroed mbufs will be allocated to fill the space.
- m_length(mbuf, last)
- Return the length of the mbuf chain, and optionally a pointer to the last mbuf.
- m_dup_pkthdr(to, from, how)
- Upon the function's completion, the
mbuf to will contain an
identical copy of from->m_pkthdr and the
per-packet attributes found in the mbuf chain
from. The mbuf
from must have the flag
M_PKTHDR
initially set, and to must be empty on entry. - m_move_pkthdr(to, from)
- Move m_pkthdr and the per-packet
attributes from the mbuf chain
from to the mbuf
to. The mbuf
from must have the flag
M_PKTHDR
initially set, and to must be empty on entry. Upon the function's completion, from will have the flagM_PKTHDR
and the per-packet attributes cleared. - m_fixhdr(mbuf)
- Set the packet-header length to the length of the mbuf chain.
- m_devget(buf, len, offset, ifp, copy)
- Copy data from a device local memory pointed to by
buf to an mbuf chain. The copy
is done using a specified copy routine copy, or
bcopy() if copy is
NULL
. - m_cat(m, n)
- Concatenate n to
m. Both mbuf chains must be of
the same type. N is still valid after the function
returned. Note: It does not handle
M_PKTHDR
and friends. - m_split(mbuf, len, how)
- Partition an mbuf chain in two
pieces, returning the tail: all but the first len
bytes. In case of failure, it returns
NULL
and attempts to restore the mbuf chain to its original state. - m_apply(mbuf, off, len, f, arg)
- Apply a function to an mbuf chain, at offset off, for length len bytes. Typically used to avoid calls to m_pullup() which would otherwise be unnecessary or undesirable. arg is a convenience argument which is passed to the callback function f. Each time f() is called, it will be passed arg, a pointer to the data in the current mbuf, and the length len of the data in this mbuf to which the function should be applied. The function should return zero to indicate success; otherwise, if an error is indicated, then m_apply() will return the error and stop iterating through the mbuf chain.
- m_getptr(mbuf, loc, off)
- Return a pointer to the mbuf containing the data located at loc bytes from the beginning of the mbuf chain. The corresponding offset into the mbuf will be stored in *off.
- m_defrag(m0, how)
- Defragment an mbuf chain, returning the shortest possible
chain of mbufs and clusters. If allocation fails and this can not be
completed,
NULL
will be returned and the original chain will be unchanged. Upon success, the original chain will be freed and the new chain will be returned. how should be eitherM_WAIT
orM_DONTWAIT
, depending on the caller's preference. This function is especially useful in network drivers, where certain long mbuf chains must be shortened before being added to TX descriptor lists. - m_unshare(m0, how)
- Create a version of the specified mbuf chain whose
contents can be safely modified without affecting other users. If
allocation fails and this operation can not be completed,
NULL
will be returned. The original mbuf chain is always reclaimed and the reference count of any shared mbuf clusters is decremented. how should be eitherM_WAIT
orM_DONTWAIT
, depending on the caller's preference. As a side-effect of this process the returned mbuf chain may be compacted. This function is especially useful in the transmit path of network code, when data must be encrypted or otherwise altered prior to transmission.
HARDWARE-ASSISTED CHECKSUM CALCULATION¶
This section currently applies to TCP/IP only. In order to save the host CPU resources, computing checksums is offloaded to the network interface hardware if possible. The m_pkthdr member of the leading mbuf of a packet contains two fields used for that purpose, int csum_flags and int csum_data. The meaning of those fields depends on the direction a packet flows in, and on whether the packet is fragmented. Henceforth, csum_flags or csum_data of a packet will denote the corresponding field of the m_pkthdr member of the leading mbuf in the mbuf chain containing the packet. On output, checksum offloading is attempted after the outgoing interface has been determined for a packet. The interface-specific field ifnet.if_data.ifi_hwassist (see ifnet(9)) is consulted for the capabilities of the interface to assist in computing checksums. The csum_flags field of the packet header is set to indicate which actions the interface is supposed to perform on it. The actions unsupported by the network interface are done in the software prior to passing the packet down to the interface driver; such actions will never be requested through csum_flags. The flags demanding a particular action from an interface are as follows:CSUM_IP
- The IP header checksum is to be computed and stored in the corresponding field of the packet. The hardware is expected to know the format of an IP header to determine the offset of the IP checksum field.
CSUM_TCP
- The TCP checksum is to be computed. (See below.)
CSUM_UDP
- The UDP checksum is to be computed. (See below.)
- all fragments will have the flag
M_FRAG
set in their m_flags field; - the first and the last fragments in the chain will have
M_FIRSTFRAG
orM_LASTFRAG
set in their m_flags, correspondingly; - the first fragment in the chain will have the total number of fragments contained in its csum_data field.
CSUM_IP_FRAGS
is set in
the field ifnet.if_data.ifi_hwassist associated with the
network interface. However, in this case the interface is expected to figure
out the location of the checksum field within the sequence of fragments by
itself because csum_data contains a fragment count
instead of a checksum offset value.
On input, an interface indicates the actions it has performed on a packet by
setting one or more of the following flags in csum_flags
associated with the packet:
CSUM_IP_CHECKED
- The IP header checksum has been computed.
CSUM_IP_VALID
- The IP header has a valid checksum. This flag can appear
only in combination with
CSUM_IP_CHECKED
. CSUM_DATA_VALID
- The checksum of the data portion of the IP packet has been computed and stored in the field csum_data in network byte order.
CSUM_PSEUDO_HDR
- Can be set only along with
CSUM_DATA_VALID
to indicate that the IP data checksum found in csum_data allows for the pseudo header defined by the TCP and UDP specifications. Otherwise the checksum of the pseudo header must be calculated by the host CPU and added to csum_data to obtain the final checksum to be used for TCP or UDP validation purposes.
CSUM_DATA_VALID
and
CSUM_PSEUDO_HDR
in csum_flags,
and set csum_data to 0xFFFF
hexadecimal to indicate a valid checksum. It is a peculiarity of the algorithm
used that the Internet checksum calculated over any valid packet will be
0xFFFF
as long as the original checksum field is
included.
For inbound packets which are IP fragments, all csum_data
fields will be summed during reassembly to obtain the final checksum value
passed to an upper layer in the csum_data field of the
reassembled packet. The csum_flags fields of all
fragments will be consolidated using logical AND to obtain the final value for
csum_flags. Thus, in order to successfully offload
checksum computation for fragmented data, all fragments should have the same
value of csum_flags.
STRESS TESTING¶
When running a kernel compiled with the optionMBUF_STRESS_TEST
, the following
sysctl(8)-controlled options may be used to create various
failure/extreme cases for testing of network drivers and other parts of the
kernel that rely on mbufs.
- net.inet.ip.mbuf_frag_size
- Causes ip_output() to fragment outgoing mbuf chains into fragments of the specified size. Setting this variable to 1 is an excellent way to test the long mbuf chain handling ability of network drivers.
- kern.ipc.m_defragrandomfailures
- Causes the function m_defrag() to
randomly fail, returning
NULL
. Any piece of code which uses m_defrag() should be tested with this feature.
RETURN VALUES¶
See above.SEE ALSO¶
ifnet(9), mbuf_tags(9)HISTORY¶
Mbufs appeared in an early version of BSD. Besides being used for network packets, they were used to store various dynamic structures, such as routing table entries, interface addresses, protocol control blocks, etc. In more recent FreeBSD use of mbufs is almost entirely limited to packet storage, with uma(9) zones being used directly to store other network-related memory. Historically, the mbuf allocator has been a special-purpose memory allocator able to run in interrupt contexts and allocating from a special kernel address space map. As of FreeBSD 5.3, the mbuf allocator is a wrapper around uma(9), allowing caching of mbufs, clusters, and mbuf + cluster pairs in per-CPU caches, as well as bringing other benefits of slab allocation.AUTHORS¶
The original mbuf manual page was written by Yar Tikhiy. The uma(9) mbuf allocator was written by Bosko Milekic.March 25, 2008 | Debian |