Google Tech Talk (more info below)
August 8, 2011

Presented by Luigi Rizzo, Universita` di Pisa

ABSTRACT

Software packet processing at line rate is problematic both in userspace and within the kernel, due to the cost of managing in-kernel metadata, and system calls/and data copy overhead.

We present a novel framework, called netmap, that solves these challenges by integrating and extending good ideas from existing proposals. With netmap, it takes as little as 70 clock cycles to move one packet between the wire and userspace processes -- more than 10 times faster than existing APIs. As an example, a single core running at 900MHz can generate the 14.8Mpps that saturate a 10GigE interface. This efficiency is an enabling factor for doing high speed packet processing within the safe and feature-rich user space environment provided by modern operating systems.

In the talk we will present netmap and its internals, explain why it is efficient yet safe and easy to use, and report our experience in developing and porting applications to the new API -- a task made easy by the existence of a pcap compatibility library.

netmap is available on FreeBSD -- work supported by EU FP7 Project "CHANGE"

URL http://info.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/netmap/

Read more about this video…

Google Tech Talks
June 20, 2007

ABSTRACT

The FreeBSD Project is one of the oldest and most successful open source operating system projects, seeing wide deployment across the IT industry. From the root name servers, to top tier ISPs, to core router operating systems, to firewalls, to embedded appliances, you can't use a networked computer for ten minutes without using FreeBSD dozens of times. Part of FreeBSD's reputation for quality and reliability comes from the nature of its development organization--driven by a hundreds of highly skilled volunteers, from high school students to university professors. And unlike most open source projects, the FreeBSD Project has developers who have been working on the same source base for over twenty years. But how does this organization work? Who pays the bandwidth bills, runs the web servers, writes the documentation, writes the code, and calls the shots? And how can developers in a dozen time zones reach agreement on the time of day, let alone a kernel architecture? This presentation will attempt to provide, in 45 minutes, a brief if entertaining snapshot into what makes FreeBSD run.

Speaker: Robert Watson
Robert Watson is a researcher at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory investinging operating system and network security. Prior to joining the Computer Laboratory to work on a PhD, he was a Senior Principal Scientist at McAfee Research, now SPARTA ISSO, a leading security research and development organization, where he directed government and commercial research contracts for customers that include DARPA, the US Navy, and Apple Computer. His research interests include operating system security, network stack structure and performance, and windowing system structure. He is also a member of the FreeBSD Core Team and president of the FreeBSD Foundation.

Read more about this video…