Method and apparatus for suppressing interrupts in a high-speed network environment

Abstract

A network interface is polled by a process operating on a host computer system. Each time the network interface is polled, the process determines whether any packets have been received. If so, they are processed. Interrupts that would normally be issued by the network interface in response to the transfer of packets to the host system are suppressed or postponed during the polling mode of operation. If, however, a predetermined period of time has elapsed or a predetermined number of packets have been received since a previous poll or a previous interrupt, then an interrupt may be generated. The rate at which interrupts may be issued is modulated to decrease the interrupt-processing burden placed on the processor. A time counter may be used to track the passage of time and a packet counter may be used to track the number of packets transferred by the network interface. After each polling operation or processing of an interrupt by the host processor, the time and packet counters are reset to threshold values and thereafter begin decrementing toward a final time count and a final packet count, respectively. Thus, a packet transferred after one polling operation or interrupt does not cause the issuance of an interrupt to the host processor unless a time or packet counter reaches its final value (e.g. zero). The threshold time count and packet count may be adjusted to ensure that interrupts are generated often enough to avoid a negative impact on the processing of packets if, for example, the polling process is blocked.