1. An apparatus comprising: a filter, implemented in at least hardware, configured to: (i) receive data packets and a descriptor, wherein the descriptor includes a header and at least one filter descriptor rule, wherein the header identifies a filtering mode, and wherein the at least one filter descriptor rule includes instructions that identify a filtering operation in the filtering mode; and (ii) filter the data packets based, at least in part, on the filtering operation identified in the at least one filter descriptor rule.