[eepro100] Strange Errors: "Suspect short first fragment"

[Basil Hussain]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can tell me what the meaning is of some error messages
I've been getting on a server of mine, and whether they're anything to worry
about.

Every once in a while, messages like the following get output to the
terminal display:

Suspect short first fragment.
eth0 PROTO=6 212.122.185.125:0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:0 L=20 S=0x00 I=52017
F=0x6000 T=15 (#0)

A few things I've noticed about the messages:

1. xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of my server.
2. 212.122.185.125 is, presumably, the remote machine's IP.
3. All the quoted figures (L, S, etc.) stay constant over each series of
msgs, with the exception of I, which rises with each subsequent error.
4. Obviously, eth0 is the network adaptor in the server.
5. These messages don't get logged anywhere that I can see.

What do they mean? Is the eepro100 driver just being paranoid? Is someone
sending malformed TCP/IP traffic to the server? Any explanation will be
gladly appreciated.

Regards,

------------------------------------------------
Basil Hussain (basil.hussain@specialreserve.net)