On Feb 19, 2021, at 9:50 PM, Jaap Keuter <jaap.keuter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> It’s not a matter of *what* the program is reading, but *where* it's reading in the buffer. This makes it usable for *all* programs reading this file format, not just Wireshark. Prefixing it with zero padding (even a nibble) would achieve that.
As would changing the spec to indicate that the preamble may reflect the length of the preamble as received, and thus that it's from 1 to 7 octets.
I infer from what Timmy Brolin, and from IEEE Std 802.3-2018, that there's no guarantee that the receiver will see all the preamble bits sent by the MAC layer, so I don't see this a indicating how long the packet was on the wire. At least as I read section 22.2.3.2.2 "Receive case" of 802.3-2018, in the clause talking about 100 Mbit Ethernet, all or none of the preamble may be received over the MII - "Table 22–4 depicts the case where no preamble nibbles are conveyed across the MII, and Table 22–5 depicts the case where the entire preamble is conveyed across the MII." - (and I suspect any value between "all" and "none" may be received).
At least as I read Figure 24-11 "Receive state diagram, part a", on the wire/fibre, the preamble begins with two special 5-bit code-groups J and K, in order, indicating the beginning of a bit stream. After that come more 5-bit code-groups which encode the nibbles of the preamble, SFD, and data (including the MAC header, payload, and FCS). I infer from that diagram that the preamble isn't used for synchronization on the wire; it may be used for synchronization between the MII and the PHY.
So it sounds as if a short preamble could be received because:
the transmitting station didn't send the entire preamble down its MII (which means the transmitter is cheating, given that 22.2.3.2.1 "Transmit case" says 7 octets are sent down the MII), and thus it wasn't put on the wire after the J/K;
the transmitting station did send the entire preamble down its MII, but the receiving station's Reconciliation Sublayer (RS) didn't manage to sync up with its Physical Coding Sublayer (PCS) because it didn't sync up with the PCS immediately - it needed to see a few bit transitions;
the PCS Just Didn't Bother Sending The Full Preamble.
I don't think bits of the preamble would be lost *over the wire*, as I infer that the receipt of the J/K starts the reception process, and if it's not in sync with the transmitter at that point, no frame is going to be received.
I also *suspect* that "the PCS Just Didn't Bother Sending The Full Preamble" isn't likely to be the cause of a short preamble.
A capture at the RS layer can't, as far as I know, distinguish between the first two cases.
The first case indicates that the transmitting station is trying to reduce its use of network bandwidth and/or reduce the latency for the packet.
The second case indicates - something?
Other PHYs may behave differently.
The reasons for *not* padding a short preamble that I can see would be
1) extra stuff for the receiver to do if it receives a short preamble;
2) loss of an indication that the preamble is short - that indication is presumably of interest to people reading the capture for purposes of diagnosing low-level Ethernet issues (meaning "probably of interest to people capturing on a network *NOT* using 802.3br" - as far as I know, there's nothing about 802.3br that makes the length of the preamble more relevant), otherwise nobody'd be asking for dissectors to handle short preambles.