Patent ID: 8493852

Claim:
A method, comprising: storing multiple descriptors, each of the multiple descriptors associated with a different set of multiple Transmisson Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) packets received by a network controller, each of the multiple descriptors identifying a network source address, network destination address, source port, and destination port shared by each of the multiple packets in the set of multiple packets associated with the respective multiple descriptors, each of the multiple descriptors including a count of the number of packets in the set of multiple packets associated with a respective descriptor; for respective received packets: determining a one of the multiple descriptors based on the network source address, network destination address, source port, and destination port of the respective packet; including the respective packet in the set of multiple packets associated with the one of the multiple descriptors; and updating the one of the multiple descriptors by incrementing the count of the number of packets in the set of multiple packets; and providing data from within the packets to a host.