A Taxonomy of the Linux Network Stack

This paper tries to give readers not familiar with the Linux network stack a gentle introduction to the fundamental concepts, data types and functions. The goal is not so much a complete reference of network stack functions. That is a rather futile exercise, given the pace of change in the kernel. The only authoritative source on this kind of information is, well, the kernel source:-)[FIXME: Online Reference for linuxdoc-generated xref of network stack?] Rather, the focus of this paper should be to help people find the way around the network stack if they want to debug a problem, or to get them started when they want to write a network protocol, or a network device driver.