Linux 6.0 Networking Brings Performance Optimizations, Early Preparations For WiFi 7

With the Linux 5.19 kernel there are some exciting networking improvements like big TCP support, PureLiFi drivers for light-based networking, WFX WiFi being promoted out of staging, and much more. Now with the in-development Linux 6.0 there is a lot more work in store.

The Linux 6.0 networking subsystem updates include the never-ending performance optimizations and tuning, IO_uring zero-copy send on the network side, early steps around WiFi 7 support to be ironed out in future kernel versions, (e)BPF enhancements, and much more. Below are some of the key highlights for the networking feature updates in Linux 6.0.

- The network-side support for IO_uring zero-copy send.

- Preparations for WiFi 7 Multi-Link Operation (MLO). WiFi 7's Multi-Link Operation aims to lower latency within congested network environments on high bands and allowing the device to alternate between bands for reducing congestion on the links and in turn lowering latency.

- Per-network namespace look-up tables for Unix sockets to yield better scalability and lowering contention.

- A big performance improvement for the TLS 1.3 receive path.

- Various eBPF improvements and optimizations. BPF programs now support sleepable uprobes, enum textual representation within libbpf, better loop performance, a new eBPF-based LSM flavor, type match support, and other new features.

- Refactoring of the networking core's forward memory allocation to better deal with memory pressure from many open sockets.

- New Ethernet drivers for Rensesas RZ/N1 ASPSW, Microchip LAN937x, Aquantia AQR113C, and other new drivers.

- The Intel ICE network driver adds improved vLAN offloading and PPPoE offloading.

- XDP redirect support for Microsoft's MANA vNIC driver for Azure.

See this pull request for the full list of networking patches this round, which add some 94k lines of new code while deleting some existing 64k lines.