Receive Queue Descriptor Pool

Abstract

A method for network communication includes providing a pool of descriptors to be shared among a plurality of transport service instances used in communicating over a network, each of the descriptors in the pool including a scatter list indicating a buffer that is available in a local memory. When a message containing data to be pushed to the local memory is received over the network on one of transport service instances, one of the descriptors is read from the pool. The data contained in the message are written to the buffer indicated by the scatter list included in the one of the descriptors.

1 . A method for network communication, comprising: 
 providing a pool of descriptors to be shared among a plurality of transport service instances used in communicating over a network, each of the descriptors in the pool comprising a scatter list indicating a buffer that is available in a local memory;    receiving a message over the network on one of transport service instances, the message comprising data to be pushed to the local memory; and    responsive to receiving the message, reading one of the descriptors from the pool, and writing the data comprised in the message to the buffer indicated by the scatter list comprised in the one of the descriptors;    wherein receiving the message comprises receiving one or more packets having payloads comprising the data, wherein the network comprises a switch fabric, wherein the transport service instances comprise queue pairs, and wherein the message comprises a send message conveyed over the fabric by a remote requester.    
   
   
       2 . A method according to  claim 1 , wherein each of the descriptors corresponds to a work queue element in a receive queue of one of the queue pairs.  
   
   
       3 . A network adapter, comprising: 
 a network interface, adapted to receive a message over a network on one of a plurality of transport service instances, the message comprising data to be pushed to a local memory;    a host interface, adapted to be coupled to a host processor and to the local memory associated therewith; and    message processing circuitry, coupled between the network interface and the host interface, which circuitry is adapted, responsive to receiving the message at the network interface, to read a descriptor from a pool of descriptors that is shared among the plurality of transport service instances, each of the descriptors in the pool comprising a scatter list indicating a buffer that is available in the local memory, and to write the data comprised in the message via the host interface to the buffer indicated by the scatter list comprised in the descriptor;    wherein the message comprises one or more packets having payloads comprising the data, wherein the network comprises a switch fabric, wherein the transport service instances comprise queue pairs, and wherein the message comprises a send message conveyed over the fabric by a remote requester.    
   
   
       4 . An adapter according to  claim 3 , wherein the descriptor corresponds to a work queue element in a receive queue of one of the queue pairs.