>That message is generated by the kernel when the kernel performs a fixup
>on the access.  Fixing it will not only make the messages go away, but
>will greatly improve the performance, as well (as the kernel won't have
>to fixup the access for you).

in reference to unaligned accesses of multibyte fields on the alpha,
stephen a. thomas says (in ipng and the tcp/ip procotols on page 111)

in both cases, the processor is able to access the value, but when the
value is aligned, the alpha can read or write it 30 times faster than
when it is not.

[alpha architecture handbook, dec 1992, p a-6]

fyi...

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