problem queueing transmit packet, packet not being transmited

[markch]

hi, i am using socket, RAW_DGRAM and AP_PACKET packet to send a packet from user space directly to intel driver (igb.ko), bypassing TCP/IP stack in the kernel. the userpace code works fine, having been tested on system running fedora 15 (kernel version 2.6.38 with e1000 driver).
but when i try to run the same code on a system running vanilla kernel 2.6.35 with intel igb driver, i see that the packet is passed down to af_packet driver which is then queued for transmission by dev_xmit_skb function. from what i understand this should have dispatched hard_xmit function in the igb driver, but it doesn't; therefore packet is not transmitted.

the igb driver version is 3.0.3

does anyone have any clue what maybe going wrong?
thank you in advance.

[markch]

it seems that if there's no link, the packet will be discarded.
does anyone know how to ensure that packet is queued and not discarded regardless of link status?

thank you in advance.