53 results about "TCP offload engine" patented technology

A TCP Offload Engine (TOE) device includes a state machine that performs TCP/IP protocol processing operations in parallel. In a first aspect, the state machine includes a first memory, a second memory, and combinatorial logic. The first memory stores and simultaneously outputs multiple TCP state variables. The second memory stores and simultaneously outputs multiple header values. In contrast to a sequential processor technique, the combinatorial logic generates a flush detect signal from the TCP state variables and header values without performing sequential processor instructions or sequential memory accesses. In a second aspect, a TOE includes a state machine that performs an update of multiple TCP state variables in a TCB buffer all simultaneously, thereby avoiding multiple sequential writes to the TCB buffer memory. In a third aspect, a TOE involves a state machine that sets up a DMA move in a single state machine clock cycle.

A system and method for interfacing TCP Offload Engines (TOE) into an operating system to improve system performance and reduce CPU utilization. The system and method places an interposed filter before the generic user space socket library near the top of the TCP stack to intercept at the earliest possible layer a user application network socket request. The interposed filter determines whether an I/O request is targeted for a generic network adapter or a full TOE network adapter. For I/O requests that are targeted to a full TOE network adapter, the request is formatted to meet the requirements of the full TOE driver and sent directly to that driver, bypassing the operating system's generic user space socket library and socket driver in kernel space. This system and method takes full advantage of the capabilities offered by TOE hardware.

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for sending data to a remote host using a socket. During operation the system receives a request from an application to write data to the socket, wherein the data is stored in a source memory buffer in user memory. Next, the system initiates a DMA (Direct Memory Access) transfer to transfer the data from the source memory buffer to a target memory buffer in a TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) Offload Engine. The system then returns control to the application without waiting for the TCP Offload Engine to send the data to the remote host.

Certain aspects of a method and system for user space TCP offload are disclosed. Aspects of a method may include offloading transmission control protocol (TCP) processing of received data to an on-chip processor. The received data may be posted directly to hardware, bypassing kernel processing of the received data, utilizing a user space library. If the received data is not cached in memory, an application buffer comprising the received data may be registered by the user space library. The application buffer may be pinned and posted to the hardware.

A ULP offload engine system, method and associated data structure are provided for performing protocol offloads without requiring a TCP offload engine (TOE). In an embodiment, the ULP offload engine provides iSCSI offload services.

A method for performing connection establishment in TCP (transmission control protocol), the method including sending a SYN segment from a sender to a TCP offload engine (TOE), the SYN segment comprising a TCP packet adapted to synchronize sequence numbers on connecting computers, creating a connection context, acknowledging receipt of the SYN segment by sending a SYN/ACK segment to the sender, and sending an ACK segment from the sender to the TOE to acknowledge receipt of the SYN/ACK segment. Alternatively, the method may include sending a SYN segment from a sender to a computer, acknowledging receipt of the SYN segment by sending a SYN/ACK segment to the TOE, creating a connection context, and sending an ACK segment from the TOE to acknowledge receipt of the SYN/ACK segment.

A hardware apparatus for receiving a packet for a TCP offload engine (TOE), and receiving system and method using the same are provided. Specifically, information required to protocol processing by a processor is stored in the internal queue included in the packet receiving hardware. Data to be stored in a host memory is transmitted to the host memory after the data is stored in an external memory and protocol processing is performed by the processor. With these techniques, it is possible that a processor can operate asynchronously with a receiving time of a practical packet and it is possible to reduce an overhead that processor deals with unnecessary information

A method and system is provided for handling data by a TCP offload engine. The TCP offload engine may be adapted to perform SCSI write operations and may comprise receiving an iSCSI write command from an iSCSI port driver. At least one buffer may be allocated for handling data associated with the received iSCSI write command from the iSCSI port driver. The received iSCSI write command may be formatted into at least one TCP segment. The at least one TCP segment may be transmitted to a target. A request to transmit (R2T) signal may be communicated from the target to an initiator. The write data may be zero copied from the allocated at least one buffer in a server to the initiator. A digest value may be calculated, which may be appended to the TCP segment communicated by the initiator to the target.

Various aspects of a method and system for transmission control protocol (TCP) traffic smoothing are presented. Traffic smoothing may comprise a method for controlling data transmission in a communications system that further comprises scheduling the timing of transmission of information from a TCP offload engine (TOE) based on a traffic profile. Traffic smoothing may comprise transmitting information from a TOE at a rate that is either greater than, approximately equal to, or less than, the rate at which the information was generated. Some conventional network interface cards (NIC) that utilize TOEs may not provide a mechanism that enables traffic shaping. By not providing a mechanism for traffic shaping, there may be a greater probability of lost packets in the network.

Certain embodiments of the invention may be found in a method and system for performing SCSI write operations via a TCP offload engine. Aspects of the method may comprise receiving an iSCSI write command from an initiator. At least one buffer may be allocated for handling data associated with the received iSCSI write command from the initiator. A request to transmit (R2T) signal may be received that may be transmitted by the initiator. The data may be zero copied from the allocated at least one buffer to the initiator.

Systems and methods that provide fault tolerant transmission control protocol (TCP) offloading are provided. In one example, a method that provides fault tolerant TCP offloading is provided. The method may include one or more of the following steps: receiving TCP segment via a TCP offload engine (TOE); calculating a TCP sequence number; writing a receive sequence record based upon at least the calculated TCP sequence number to a TCP sequence update queue in a host; and updating a first host variable with a value from the written receive sequence record.

An interrupt coalescing scheme for high throughput TCP offload engine and method thereof are disclosed. An interrupt descriptor queue is used, that TCP offload engine saves TCP connection information and interrupt information in an interrupt event descriptor per interrupt. Meanwhile the software processes an interrupt by reading interrupt event descriptors asynchronously. The software may process multiple interrupt event descriptors in one interrupt context.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a transmission control protocol (TCP) data transmission method, TCP uninstallation engine, and system, which relate to the communications field, and can reduce data removal between TCP the uninstallation engine and a CPU, and at the same time reduce parsing work on data by a CPU, so as to achieve the effects of reducing resources for processing TCP/IP data of the CPU and reducing a transmission delay. The method comprises: a TCP uninstallation engine receiving TCP data sent by a remote device; performing TCP uninstallation on the TCP data; and identifying the data after TCP uninstallation, and sending the data after TCP uninstallation to a CPU or a storage device corresponding to storage position information delivered by the CPU according to the identification result. The embodiments of the present invention are applicable to TCP data transmission.

Provided are a TCP offload engine (TOE) apparatus and method for static file transmission. An apparatus for system call processing for static file transmission includes an application program block for generating a file transmission command upon a user's file transmission request, a BSD socket module for converting the file transmission command of a file unit into a division transmission command for division-transmission of a certain size unit, a TOE kernel module for receiving the division transmission command and converting the division transmission command into a TOE control command, and a TOE apparatus module for generating a data packet of the certain size for network transmission in response to the TOE control command and transmitting the data packet to a node having requested file transmission.

One or more modules include a first portion that teams together multiple physical network interface ports of a computing system to appear as a single virtual network interface port to a switch to which the physical ports are linked. A second portion determines a receive port upon which a packet of a TCP session was received. A third portion assigns a transmit port to be the receive port, wherein the transmit port is used by the computing system to transmit packets of the TCP session. The third portion assigns the transmit port prior to a TCP offload engine (TOE) being enabled to offload from the system CPU processing of packets of the TCP session transceived on the assigned transmit/receive port. If a subsequent packet for the TCP session is received on a different second port, the transmit port is reassigned to be the second port.

Certain embodiments of the invention may be found in a method and system for performing a SCSI read operation via a TCP offload engine. Aspects of the method may comprise receiving an iSCSI read command from an initiator. Data may be fetched from a buffer based on the received iSCSI read command. The fetched data may be zero copied from the buffer to the initiator and a TCP sequence may be retransmitted to the initiator. The method may further comprise checking if the zero copied fetched data is a first frame in an iSCSI protocol data unit and if the buffer is posted. The retransmitted TCP sequence may be processed and the fetched data may be zero copied into an iSCSI buffer, if the buffer is posted.