forcing a packet to go through hw net device

["'Jeff' R. Steinhagen" <Jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!

I have a (maybe trivial) question about the kernel's networking code:

A packet with an "outside" destination goes through all layers including the 
hardware interface (user->socket->protocol->IP->HW). However if the packet is 
addressed to a local IP the transport through and checks by the hardware 
layer are avoided. This is perfectly OK for "normal" network usage.

I am profiling some network hardware and related code. Is it possible to force 
an internally generated packet to be send through all/the hardware layers?

Thanks for your help!

Cheers,
Jeff