Microsoft & Others Form The eBPF Foundation

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Microsoft & Others Form The eBPF Foundation

One of the most exciting Linux kernel innovations in recent years has been eBPF for an in-kernel virtual machine allowing sandboxed programs running within the Linux kernel. The Linux Foundation along with Microsoft and other partners are now forming the eBPF Foundation...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=eBPF-Foundation

[mdedetrich]

Enqueue the Microsoft hatred

[gigi]

to me this is like creating backdoor on the linux kernel itself?

skeptical unless all the original authors or firms provide dedicated staff (not a single dev but team of atleast six members working 24/7 or around the clock) to resolve issues within a day?

[MadWatch]

Even after reading through their website I still don't understand what's the use for this. What can we do with eBPF that we couldn't do before? Is this about making Linux more like a micro kernel where drivers and modules have limited privilege and are isolated from each others?

[cynic]

EEE has already been told today?

[Chewi]

Let's not start spreading FUD. I don't know a lot about it but I gather it opens up many possibilities. I attended this talk by SUSE at FOSDEM last year on how it can be used as a faster iptables replacement.

[skeevy420]

eBPF changes the way operating systems and infrastructure services are designed. It bridges the boundary between kernel and user space. It encourages and accelerates innovation and is a significant leap forward in open source technology for networking, security, application profiling/tracing and system observability use cases. eBPF enables users to even combine and apply logic across multiple subsystems which were traditionally completely independent.

I feel like I could replace eBPF up there with anything else and it would still work because that's just a bunch of buzzwords in the form of a paragraph.

I'm not saying this isn't cool or doesn't have potential.

[etam]

The more I hear about features implemented in Linux kernel, the more I think about Hurd. I mean, a lot of those things implemented in kernel, sound like some userspace thing.

[andyprough]

Ten years from now when security researchers find all the security holes, there are going to be some painful mitigations for dealing with this.

[GruenSein]

The more I hear about features implemented in Linux kernel, the more I think about Hurd. I mean, a lot of those things implemented in kernel, sound like some userspace thing.

Wouldn't that make HURD the opposite? AFAIK, HURD aims to provide most functionality as independent servers so that it is independent from other functionality and cannot crash the kernel itself. Lately, most Linux news seems to revolve around putting more stuff into the kernel.