Method and apparatus for processing packets

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer usable medium having computer usable program code for processing packets for transmission, the computer program product comprising:
• computer usable program code for identifying a set of interface specific network buffers from a plurality of buffers containing data for a packet received for transmission;
• and
• computer usable program code for creating a data structure describing the set of interface specific network buffers within the plurality of buffers, wherein a section in the data structure for an interface specific network buffer in the set of interface specific network buffers includes information about a piece of data in interface specific network buffer, wherein the data structure is used to process the packet for transmission.

A data processing system comprising:

• a bus;
• a communications unit connected to the bus;
• a storage device connected to the bus, wherein the storage device includes computer usable program code;
• and
• a processor unit connected to the bus, wherein the processor unit executes the computer usable program code to identify a set of interface specific network buffers from a plurality of buffers containing data for a packet received for transmission and create a data structure describing the set of interface specific network buffers within the plurality of buffers, wherein a section in the data structure for an interface specific network buffer in the set of interface specific network buffers includes information about a piece of data in interface specific network buffer, wherein the data structure is used to process the packet for transmission.