Large receive offload
In computer networking, large receive offload is a technique for increasing inbound throughput of high-bandwidth network connections by reducing central processing unit overhead. It works by aggregating multiple incoming packets from a single stream into a larger buffer before they are passed higher up the networking stack, thus reducing the number of packets that have to be processed.Large receive offload
implementations generally use LRO in conjunction with the New API to also reduce the number of interrupts.
According to benchmarks, even implementing this technique entirely in software can increase network performance significantly., the Linux kernel supports LRO for TCP in software only. FreeBSD 8 supports LRO in hardware on adapters that support it.
LRO should not operate on machines acting as routers, as it breaks the end-to-end principle and can significantly impact performance.Generic receive offload
Generic receive offload implements a generalised LRO in software that isn't restricted to TCP/IPv4 or have the issues created by LRO.
