LyraNET: A zero-copy TCP/IP protocol stack for embedded systems

Embedded systems are usually resource limited in terms of processing power, memory, and power consumption, thus embedded TCP/IP should be designed to make the best use of limited resources. Applying zero-copy mechanism can reduce memory usage and CPU processing time for data transmission. Power consumption can be reduced as well. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of zero-copy mechanism in the target embedded TCP/IP component, LyraNET, which is derived from Linux TCP/IP codes and remodeled as a reusable software component that is independent from operating systems and hardware. Performance evaluation shows that TCP/IP protocol processing overhead can be significantly decreased by 23-63%. Besides, object code size of this network component is only 77.64% of the size of the original Linux TCP/IP stack. The experience of this study can serve as the reference for embedding Linux TCP/IP stack into a target system that requires network connectivity and improving the transmission efficiency of Linux TCP/IP by zero-copy implementation.