Patent ID: 7716730
Filing Date: 2010-05-11
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for offloading a secure protocol connection, comprising: establishing a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection between a host system and a remote peer, wherein the TCP/IP connection is maintained by a network interface card (NIC); establishing the secure protocol connection between the host system and the remote peer, wherein the secure protocol connection is established over the TCP/IP connection, wherein the secure protocol connection comprises one selected from the group consisting of a secure sockets layer (SSL) connection and a transport layer security (TLS) connection, and wherein the secure protocol connection is established by the host system; offloading the secure protocol connection to the NIC to obtain an offloaded secure protocol connection, comprising: determining that a packet is associated with the offloaded secure protocol connection; identifying the offloaded secure protocol connection; performing cryptographic operations on the packet using at least one secret key to obtain a processed packet; and returning a status of the processed packet to the host system.