Packet structure

+---------------------------+
|           Unused          |
|         (2 Octets)        |
+---------------------------+
|        ARPHRD_ type       |
|         (2 Octets)        |
+---------------------------+
|           Unused          |
|         (10 Octets)       |
+---------------------------+
|        Protocol type      |
|         (2 Octets)        |
+---------------------------+
|           Payload         |
.                           .
.                           .
.                           .

Description

The ARPHRD_ type field is in network byte order; it will be equal to the Linux ARPHRD_ value ARPHRD_NETLINK.

The protocol type field is in network byte order; it contains a Netlink protocol type, such as NETLINK_ROUTE, NETLINK_NFLOG, NETLINK_AUDIT, etc.

The payload begins with a Netlink header, as described in section 2.3.2, "Netlink Message Header", of RFC 3549.