[OT] scatter-gather ops within host memory on a PC

[Mark Frazer <mark@mjfrazer.org>]

I'd like to aggregate a bunch of ethernet packet payloads into a single
large buffer after examining the packet headers to determine the order of
the packets.  The data volume makes offloading this to a DMA controller
desirable.

Do PC chipsets have DMA controllers on them to do these scatter-gather
operations?  I know a lot of embedded SoC processors do, but am not
to familiar with the current PC chipsets.

I've glanced at the NFS code but haven't studied it a lot.
rxrpc/transport.c seems to copy some data around, so I assume that linux
uses the host processor to gather the individual ethernet packets into
pages that go into the page cache.

Are there any good books anyone would recommend on PC architecture?

thanks
-mark
-- 
The laws of science be a harsh mistress. - Bender