Netdev 0x14 - Tutorial: How to add AF_XDP zero-copy support to drivers
Channel: netdevconf
Date: 09/10/2020

Instructor: Maxim Mikityanskiy

More info: https://netdevconf.info/0x14/session.html?tutorial-adding-AF_XDP-zero-copy-support-to-drivers

Date: Friday, August 14, 2020

AF_XDP is a relatively new technology optimized for high
performance packet processing. It provides an
abstraction over hardware rings, so the application can
handle packets in a low-level, yet hardware-agnostic
fashion. With conforming drivers, AF_XDP also provides
zero-copy packet handling capabilities to the application.

At its basic level AF_XDP works works fine with a lot of
conforming drivers. Adding zero-copy support is more challenging.
Maxim Mikityanskiy has been through trial-by-fire writting zero
copy AF_XDP support and came out unscathed.

In this tutorial, Maxim instructs on how a driver author would go about
adding AF_XDP zero copy support using the mlx5e driver as an
example.