VirtIO Vsock Performance To Improve With Linux 6.12

The VirtIO Vsock guest/host communication interface using virtual sockets will see better performance with the in-development Linux 6.12 kernel.

Sent out this week were the VirtIO updates for Linux 6.12. The VirtIO kernel work this cycle includes new stats for the VirtIO Balloon driver, VDPA supports setting the MAC address, VDPA/MLX5 suspend/resume operations are faster, and enhancing the performance of the VirtIO Vsock code.

Luigi Leonardi authored the change to vsock/virtio to avoid queuing packets when the intermediate queue is empty. This VirtIO Vsock change can make a significant impact to lowering the latency and boosting the throughput as shown in the prior patch comments:

Some very nice improvements to enjoy with Linux 6.12.