Re: [RFC v2] mac80211: assign needed_headroom/tailroom for netdevs

David Miller
2008-05-05T20:02:25Z

From: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 21:57:36 +0200

> Not necessarily because we seem to be getting a lot of cloned frames
> that we need to copy all the time. If we would remove the ethernet
> header and stick that skb into the fraglist of a new skb we'd win.

And the copy is necessary because you need more tailroom or something?

I don't understand why simply having all the space you need is not
better and faster :-)

Even if you have a clone, you can muck with the data in the IP and TCP
header areas, so long as skb_header_cloned() is false.

So I can only conclude that your problematic case is that of
encryption, right? That's the only situation where I can imagine you
need to modify with packet data outside of the protocol headers.