[darbelo]

The "mbuf chain stupidity" refers to the way memory buffers are handled in the kernel. His implementation uses 'pbufs' to store a single packet contiguously in kernel memory. This is in contrast to BSD[1], where a packet could span multiple 'mbufs' which were 'chained' into a linked list.

You can "man 9 mbuf" on your nearest BSD derivative to glean a bit more information about what he is opposing. Today's mbufs are not quite the same as they were back then, but the parts that he hated are still there :)

[1] "my kernel looks nothing at all like any version of BSD"

[laichzeit0]

For a walk through of the BSD TCP/IP source code there's also Steven's TCP/IP illustrated volume 2. The first few chapters painstakingly go through mbufs and exactly how the data structure is implemented and used. Much of this won't apply to current kernels but it's probably close enough for what Van Jacobson is talking about.

http://www.amazon.com/TCP-IP-Illustrated-Implementation-Vol/...