Linux Networking – How to Disable TCP-Offloading Completely and Easily

debianlinuxnetworkingtcp-offload-engine

I want to disable tcp-offloading ("TOE") on my debian servers.

ethtool -K .....

I have some wishes, though:

Integrate it cleanly into debian

This reads: no rc.local, I would also like to avoid pseudo-rc-scripting…

I would guess, it's installing ethtool and using the pre-up.d/-Hook which deconfigures TOE using options from /etc/network/interfaces.

I would like to deconfigure all my (future) servers in a generic fashion using FAI. (since fai is already in place – and wanted!)
What about toe-options that are not supported on some hardware? Will networking fail if a non-existing-option should be disabled? I guess it should be robust not to do so, but this does not seem to be my wanted solution, either.

It clutters the config very much, since atm there are 11 options! Using multiple NICs this smells error-prone to me.

Isn't there a more generic solution? I have a sysctl in mind, but did not find one yet. My wish was:

echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/core/enable_tcp_offloading

PS: I'm quite surprised to find my "newer hardwares" to have TOE enabled by default, because of this: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/networking/toe

Best Answer

On Debian, the ethtool package now provides an if-up.d script that implements options for offloading (and other ethtool settings).

You just have to install this package and add lines like these to the interface in/etc/network/interfaces.

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
    address 10.0.3.1/255.255.248.0
    gateway 10.0.2.10
    offload-tx  off
    offload-sg  off
    offload-tso off
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