Talk:TCP offload engine

message: The following paragraph that used to be in the History section reads like an advertisement with its dramatic claims ("unprecedented", "game-changing"), doesn't give any technology details, and has no references. I've thus deleted it. Cjs (talk) 14:20, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advertising in the Article 

message: The article says that Linux does not support TCP offloading at all, but my Debian 6.0.2 x86_64
machine running kernel 2.6.32 with a Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5755 supports it and has it enabled
by default.  38.99.3.113 (talk) 02:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linux information incorrect 

message: Some server systems such as made by Dell have an odd little doodad that plugs into the motherboard, known as a "TCP Offload Engine key". There is no explanation of what this key is, or what its purpose is.
I assume it is some sort of authorization device, where you could buy a server without TOE enabled at a lower price, and then "add capability!" by purchasing the authorization later.
If I ever discard a server that uses a TOE key, I'm probably going to cut the key open, photograph the results, and add it as a section of this article.... if no one else does first.
-- DMahalko (talk) 01:48, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's relevant to this article, but might be relevant at software protection dongle. The TOE key is nothing different from how earlier servers needed an on-board dongle to enable hardware virtualization support, or the BMC and KVM redirection over network. -- intgr [talk] 10:00, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explain purpose of "TOE key" ? 

message: PCI is dead; long live PCI-E.  Is this section mostly obsolete, or do the same problems apply to PCI-E due to it's PCI heritage?
08af9a09 (talk) 12:24, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I get the impression that TCP offload cards are just as obsolete as PCI. :) -- intgr [talk] 09:18, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Reduction of PCI traffic" section - but PCI is dead 

message: I'm placing an "outdated" tag on the whole article because the majority of it is based on 2000-ish sources, figures and technology; the 1Hz/1 bps rule is certainly outdated because core counts and instructions per cycle rates have kept increasing despite clock speeds levelling off. Meanwhile NICs and kernels have invented other, less invasive offloading techniques (multiqueue, LRO, LSO, flow steering, etc), not taken into account in the article.
Today, while there are still a handful of TOE devices on the market, they are a niche product and their usefulness is much less clear. To the contrary, there are plenty of stories about optimizing network performance using non-TOE setups, such as from Red Hat , Google , CloudFlare  and researchers http://www.globalcis.org/jcit/ppl/JCIT1787PPL.pdf.* The article should be rewritten from that point of view. -- intgr [talk] 14:49, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: * Commented out predatory open access journal. Guy (Help!) 12:04, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outdated 

message: I removed an incorrect statement about TOE support in Linux: However kernel network drivers have had TOE support since 2002. ethtool 1.7 man page
The statement is incorrect because said drivers support partial TCP offload features, not full TCP offload engine. There is a difference between partial TCP offload and TCP offload engine. A partial TCP offload supports only segmentation on the send side or reassembly on the receive side and the full operating system TCP stack is still used. A TCP offload engine (TOE) replaces parts of the operating system TCP stack with silicon. Linux will never, ever support TOE: https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/toe 88.112.67.108 (talk) 13:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed incorrect mention of TOE support in Linux 

message: These are functions of the TOE and can be handled as subsections in TCP_offload_engine#Types_of_TCP/IP_offload. ~Kvng (talk) 15:51, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Klbrain (talk) 09:27, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Large receive offload]] and [[Large send offload]] merge proposal