For a homework assignment, I was tasked with creating a “Ping Pong” layer that sits right above the Ethernet stack.
I was able to easily complete the task but when I tested my application over my wireless connection and tried communication with my desktop computer (ethernet) on the same network I found some odd behavior.
It seems like the packet is being padded with information I did not add.
From wireless->ethernet I get something like the following (as a hex output of the data received, taking off the ethernet header, periods are unprintable characters).
3-468…lkin54g……$
0Hl………*../..2..
When my desktop responds to my laptop (ethernet->wireless) I get something like the following
3-468…………….
…………………
Is this expected behavior?
Yes. Valid Ethernet frames have a minimum size of 64 bytes (including the Ethernet header and a 4-byte checksum at the end).