What is TLS Record Direct?

TLS Record Direct is a technology implemented in some web servers like LiteSpeed or OpenLiteSpeed that makes it possible to transfer SSL/TLS-encrypted content faster by reducing the overhead for TLS record processing.

Usually, SSL/TLS encryption is performed at the application layer (layer 7), which means that after receiving a packet containing encrypted data, the web server has to unpack the packet, decrypt it, and then send the result to the client. However, this process causes significant overhead for the web server, since a separate TLS handshake phase and record processing must be performed for each received packet.

TLS Record Direct reduces this overhead by performing encryption at a lower level (Layer 4) before the data is passed to the application layer. This allows the web server to process multiple encrypted data streams at once and reduce CPU usage. The result is faster and more efficient SSL/TLS encryption and transmission of data.