we found a bug in net/appletalk/ddp.c concerning broadcast packets. In
kernel 2.4 it was working fine. The bug first occured 4 years ago when
switching to new SNAP layer handling. This bug can be splitted up into a
sending(1) and reception(2) problem:
Sending(1)
In kernel 2.4 broadcast packets were sent to a matching ethernet device
and atalk_rcv() was called to receive it as "loopback" (so loopback
packets were shortcutted and handled in DDP layer).
When switching to the new SNAP structure, this shortcut was removed and
the loopback packet was send to SNAP layer. The author forgot to replace
the remote device pointer by the loopback device pointer before sending
the packet to SNAP layer (by calling ddp_dl->request() ) therfor the
packet was not sent back by underlying layers to ddp's atalk_rcv().
Reception(2)
In atalk_rcv() a packet received by this loopback mechanism contains now
the (rigth) loopback device pointer (in Kernel 2.4 it was the (wrong)
remote ethernet device pointer) and therefor no matching socket will be
found to deliver this packet to. Because a broadcast packet should be
send to the first matching socket (as it is done in many other protocols
(?)), we removed the network comparison in broadcast case.
Below you will find a patch to correct this bug. Its diffed to kernel
2.6.14-rc1
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@ghostprotocols.net> Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>