Turn off NIC TSO (Transmit Segment Offload)

[dlandon]

Turn off TSO on all NICs.  Large Segment Offload (known as Transmit Segment Offload in Linux) was implemented to offload some network processing to the NIC.  While good in theory, it appears to cause more problems than it solves.  It was more appropriate in older systems with limited processing power, but can result in choppy video and audio in media streaming and gaming applications in modern systems.

 

It should be defaulted off on all NICs.  There is no reason for a user to turn it back on.

 

Turn off TSO:

ethtool -K ethX tso off

[RobJ]

According to this page, generic segmentation should be off too, or it doesn't work.  Anyone agree or disagree, and why?

 

   ethtool -K eth0 tso off
   ethtool -K eth0 gso off

[dlandon]

It looks like you are correct.  According to the article you reference, both must be off.

[Squid]

Is this something that fix common problems should be checking for (under the "other" section).

 

I don't know enough 'nix and/or networking to know anything about this

 

[dlandon]

Is this something that fix common problems should be checking for (under the "other" section).

 

I don't know enough 'nix and/or networking to know anything about this

 

Probably not.  It doesn't seem to affect all users.  I think it depends on a users setup and things like the network switch they use.

 

I'm going to develop a plugin that will allow adjusting this and some other settings so users can experiment if changing settings can help with their issues.

[Squid]

I'm going to develop a plugin that will allow adjusting this and some other settings so users can experiment if changing settings can help with their issues.

Even better

 

[dlandon]

I've developed a plugin that will permit users to work with this feature on their NIC(s).

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=49233.0