Intel IGC Network Driver Queues XDP Support For Linux 5.13

The Intel IGC network driver (not to be confused with their other IGC, the Intel Graphics Compiler) that supports their Gigabit/2.5G Ethernet devices has support for the Express Data Path (XDP) with the upcoming Linux 5.13 cycle.

Linux XDP "eXpress Data Path" allows for hooking in eBPF programs at a lower-level to the driver for packet processing and any editing of the packet data. While Intel's drivers for their enterprise network hardware has already supported XDP, the IGC driver has not supported XDP until now for this high performance data path. See this Red Hat blog post for more background details on XDP.

Queued yesterday into Net-Next ahead of the Linux 5.13 merge window is XDP support for the IGC driver.

The Intel IGC XGP implementation is similar to that of Intel's other open-source network drivers. Still to be implemented are UMEM and zero-copy features for AF_XDP, which are said to be coming in a follow-up patch series.
The excitement and possibilities around eBPF in the kernel continue.