Task offload to a peripheral device

In one embodiment, to determine what tasks may be offloaded to a peripheral hardware device (e.g., to be performed in hardware on the peripheral device, rather than on the CPU(s) of the host computer), an indication from the at least one peripheral hardware device may be provided, without the peripheral hardware device first being queried to determine the task offload capabilities provided by the peripheral hardware device. In one embodiment, a large packet that includes a plurality of extension headers may be offloaded to the peripheral hardware device for segmentation. An indication of the offset where the extension headers end may be provided in connection with the large packet. In another embodiment, a packet with extension headers that come before an encryption header in the packet are not offloaded to peripheral hardware device for encryption, while packets with no extension headers before the encryption header may be offloaded.