SOCKMAP - TCP splicing of the future
Proper TCP socket splicing reduces the load on userspace processes and enables more efficient data forwarding. We realized that Linux Kernel's SOCKMAP infrastructure can be reused for this purpose.
io_submit: The epoll alternative you've never heard about
The Linux AIO is designed for, well, Asynchronous disk IO! Disk files are not the same thing as network sockets! Is it even possible to use the Linux AIO API with network sockets in the first place? The answer turns out to be a strong YES!
Every 7.8μs your computer’s memory has a hiccup
I was particularly interested in one of the consequences of how dynamic RAM works. You see, each bit of data is stored by the charge (or lack of it) on a tiny capacitor within the RAM chip. But these capacitors gradually lose their charge over time.
The rise of multivector DDoS attacks
It's been a while since we last wrote about Layer 3/4 DDoS attacks on this blog. This is a good news - we've been quietly handling the daily onslaught of DDoS attacks. Since our last write-up, a handful of interesting L3/4 attacks have happened. Let's review them.
Fixing an old hack - why we are bumping the IPv6 MTU
Back in 2015 we deployed ECMP routing - Equal Cost Multi Path - within our datacenters. This technology allowed us to spread traffic heading to a single IP address across multiple physical servers.