System and method for adaptive generic receive offload

A method comprising:

• providing a host comprising a host protocol stack and a host memory;
• providing a network interface card (NIC) configured to receive a plurality of packets from a network and pass the plurality of packets to the host;
• receiving, at the host protocol stack, a packet of the plurality of packets from the NIC, the packet associated with a flow from a plurality of flows for the network;
• comparing, by the host protocol stack, a sequence number of the packet with sequence numbers for a plurality of payload aggregations associated with the flow, each payload aggregation comprising one or more payloads from network packets associated with the flow;
• determining, by the host protocol stack and based on the comparison, that a payload for the packet fills a gap between a first payload aggregation and a second payload aggregation from the plurality of payload aggregations,
• wherein the first payload aggregation begins at a first sequence number and the second payload aggregation ends at a second sequence number;
• and
• combining, by the host protocol stack and in response to the determination, the first payload aggregation with the second payload aggregation to form a third payload aggregation comprising the payload,
• wherein the third payload aggregation begins at the first sequence number and ends at the second sequence number.