Patent ID: 8848713

Claim:
A method of processing data packets comprising: receiving data packets at a receive stack at an ingress interface of an electronic network device, wherein the receive stack includes a first application layer, a first transport control protocol (TCP) layer, a first Internet protocol (IP) layer, and a first data link layer, the first data link layer having a first bridge layer and a first firmware layer herein; creating within the first firmware layer a first packet from at least a portion of each of the set of data packets, the first packet including an indicator that the first packet is a large receive offload (LRO) packet; passing the first packet from the first firmware layer to the first bridge of the receive stack; upon recognizing the first packet as an LRO packet based on the indicator, overriding a packet size limitation implemented by the first bridge, thereby enabling the first bridge to process the first packet; determining whether the first packet matches a media access control (MAC) address in a MAC address table provided by the first bridge; if no match is found in the MAC address table, determining whether the first packet matches an IP address in an IP address table provided by the first IP layer; if a match is found, transmitting the first packet to a corresponding layer of a transmit stack of an egress interface of the electronic network device without passing the first packet to the first TCP layer or the first application layer of the receive stack, wherein the transmit stack includes a second application layer, a second transport control protocol (TCP) layer, a second Internet protocol (IP) layer, and a second data link layer, the second data link layer having a second bridge layer and a second firmware layer herein, wherein the corresponding layer of the transmit stack that receives the first packet is one of the second bridge layer and the second firmware layer; and routing, by the transmit stack of the egress interface, the first packet to a destination specified by the match via the egress interface.