Patent ID: 9594842
Date: 2017-03-14
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L,Y10S

Claim:
1. A method for use by a host computer system in dynamically reconfiguring a filter table in a network interface device, the filter table having a plurality of filter entries, the method comprising: receiving a request to close a specified network socket; identifying in the network interface device filter table a particular filter entry in a particular chain of filter entries, the particular filter entry containing data that corresponds to the specified socket; responsive to a determination that removing from the filter table data from a first set of filter entries including the particular filter entry would not reduce a maximum chain length of filter entries in the filter table, the module replacing the data in the particular filter entry in the filter table with a tombstone marker; and responsive to a determination that removing from the filter table data from a second set of filter entries including the particular filter entry would reduce the maximum chain length of filter entries in the filter table, performing a garbage collection of tombstoned filter entries; wherein the chain length of the particular chain of filter entries is the number of entries between a first filter entry of the particular chain and the last filter entry that contains data corresponding to an open socket, inclusive.