UDP question

[chroot]

We plan on installing a fast private LAN shared only by our servers via a 2nd NIC.

Basically, a server will "speak" (master) and all others will "listen" (slaves x 4).

Initially we thought about implementing a common tcp-ip algorithm between master and slaves, but after 2nd thoughts, an UDP based algorithm could be better:

- the master broadcasts packets to the whole LAN (instead of slave by slave sending).
- we would implement a simple re-send mechanism in case of missing packet (but probability of lost packets should be low)

Our question is related to our strategy relevancy:
- is the TCP protocol usually taken care of by the NIC itself (re-send mechanism), or by the Linux driver? (talking about recent NICs, say, since 2008 )

If it is the driver, we'd probably better use UDP and implement a simpler re-send mechanism, without the overhead of TCP.

[manicanet]

It will not be handled by the NIC card itself. The NIC card does not know what happens at the IP layer and above.