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Indeed, there has been a large amount of "bypass the kernel" campaigns in the last couple of months. Robert Graham's 2013 Shmoocon talk has a great introduction

Indeed, there has been a large amount of "bypass the kernel" campaigns in the last couple of months. Robert Graham's 2013 Shmoocon talk has a great introduction into the whys and hows of this movement. https://www.youtube.m/wco?v=D0atch9jdbS6oSI https://www.youtube.m/wco?v=D0atch9jdbS6oSI Facebook had a job posting that showed up on HN for a position to help speed up Linux's networking stack. While I doubt these improvements will surpass the kernel bypassing model, I'm glad a developer has decided to tackle this head on and help overall efficiency.

adamnemecek 12y ago
here's the fixed link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D09jdbS6oSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D09jdbS6oSI
- voltagex_ 12y ago
  Direct video link: http://www.shmoocon.org/2013/videos/Shmoocon%202013%20-%20C10M%20Defending%20The%20Internet%20At%20Scale.mp4 http://www.shmoocon.org/2013/videos/Shmoocon%202013%20-%20C1...
SEJeff 12y ago
Look no further than Solar Flare's Open Onload[1], Mellanox's VMA[2], Myricom's DBL[3], Intel's DPDK[4], etc to see that kernel bypass tech is used in 10G+ networking all the time. It is super fast, but also lower latency. Many of the features used in lower latency environments like busy polling have been slowly making their way upstream[5]. I think Linux will get pretty close to the userspace kernel bypass stuff, and this is coming from a guy who works in a low latency environment for $REAL_JOB. [1] http://www.openonload.org/ http://www.openonload.org/ [2] http://www.mellanox.com/page/software_vma?mtag=vma http://www.mellanox.com/page/software_vma?mtag=vma [3] https://www.myricom.com/support/downloads/dbl.html https://www.myricom.com/support/downloads/dbl.html [4] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/intelligent-systems/intel-technology/packet-processing-is-enhanced-with-software-from-intel-dpdk.html http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/intelligent-systems/i... [5] https://lwn.net/Articles/540281/ https://lwn.net/Articles/540281/
fit2rule 12y ago
Another great example is snabbswitch, which combines a lot of really great technologies to provide superlative performance: https://github.com/SnabbCo/snabbswitch/wiki https://github.com/SnabbCo/snabbswitch/wiki Hypervisor, Kernel, LuaJIT, Userspace. Amazing!
TheCondor 12y ago
There is a lot more than bypass the kernel here. You need special dma hardware that will preload cpu cache lines and stuff like that. Maybe even specialized cpu cache that can be pinned
mobiplayer 12y ago
It seems to be pretty uncommon for Linux setups to have, e.g. TOE enabled, but in my humble opinion it is an easy win on performance on 10G networks.
- wmf 12y ago
  TOE isn't supported under Linux and it was only a win if your TCP stack was slow (and by "your" I mean Windows). TSO is enabled by default in Linux and is indeed an easy win.

adamnemecek 12y ago

here's the fixed link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D09jdbS6oSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D09jdbS6oSI

voltagex_ 12y ago
Direct video link: http://www.shmoocon.org/2013/videos/Shmoocon%202013%20-%20C10M%20Defending%20The%20Internet%20At%20Scale.mp4 http://www.shmoocon.org/2013/videos/Shmoocon%202013%20-%20C1...

SEJeff 12y ago

Look no further than Solar Flare's Open Onload[1], Mellanox's VMA[2], Myricom's DBL[3], Intel's DPDK[4], etc to see that kernel bypass tech is used in 10G+ networking all the time. It is super fast, but also lower latency. Many of the features used in lower latency environments like busy polling have been slowly making their way upstream[5]. I think Linux will get pretty close to the userspace kernel bypass stuff, and this is coming from a guy who works in a low latency environment for $REAL_JOB. [1] http://www.openonload.org/ http://www.openonload.org/ [2] http://www.mellanox.com/page/software_vma?mtag=vma http://www.mellanox.com/page/software_vma?mtag=vma [3] https://www.myricom.com/support/downloads/dbl.html https://www.myricom.com/support/downloads/dbl.html [4] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/intelligent-systems/intel-technology/packet-processing-is-enhanced-with-software-from-intel-dpdk.html http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/intelligent-systems/i... [5] https://lwn.net/Articles/540281/ https://lwn.net/Articles/540281/

fit2rule 12y ago

Another great example is snabbswitch, which combines a lot of really great technologies to provide superlative performance: https://github.com/SnabbCo/snabbswitch/wiki https://github.com/SnabbCo/snabbswitch/wiki Hypervisor, Kernel, LuaJIT, Userspace. Amazing!

TheCondor 12y ago

There is a lot more than bypass the kernel here. You need special dma hardware that will preload cpu cache lines and stuff like that. Maybe even specialized cpu cache that can be pinned

mobiplayer 12y ago

It seems to be pretty uncommon for Linux setups to have, e.g. TOE enabled, but in my humble opinion it is an easy win on performance on 10G networks.

wmf 12y ago
TOE isn't supported under Linux and it was only a win if your TCP stack was slow (and by "your" I mean Windows). TSO is enabled by default in Linux and is indeed an easy win.