Method for distributing a network stream

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for distributing a network stream from at least one data source to a plurality of processors or processor cores of a computing device. The computing device has a network card which supports the receive side scaling (RSS) function, wherein, when this function is activated, the network card or its device driver generates an RSS indirection table () in which there is stored, for each index, the number of a processor or processor core, which will process an incoming data packet assigned to this index, and subsequently the network card calculates a hash value for each incoming data packet and maps the hash value to an index in precisely this table, wherein the hash value is formed via the combination of source and destination IP addresses and ports and is thus static for the duration of the connection. The method comprises the steps of specifying () at least one processor or processor core of the computing device, selecting () a port of the at least one data source, generating () a data set assigned to the selected port, determining () the processor or processor core assigned to the data set, repeating the steps of selection (), generation () and determination () until a port has been determined for each specified processor or processor core, and sending () data packets via the ports determined for the specified processors or processor cores.