Microsoft Adding Azure "MANA" Driver To Linux
Queued on Monday into the Net-Next tree ahead of the Linux 5.13 cycle is the Microsoft "MANA" driver. MANA is the Microsoft Azure Network Adapter network driver that will "be available in the future" with Microsoft's cloud. Given that more than half of the Azure instances are powered by Linux, it's to little surprise in this case they are upstreaming the driver early ahead of rolling out this Azure network adapter.
Several Microsoft engineers worked on this Azure Network Adapter that comes in at more than six thousand lines of new kernel code. The driver in its current form has only been tested on x86_64 and is the first Microsoft network device driver to go into the mainline kernel.
In quickly skimming through the code the comments don't reveal any interesting details around this yet to be utilized Microsoft Azure Network Adapter. Those wanting to look more into it can find the Microsoft MANA driver via net-next.git ahead of the Linux 5.13 merge window beginning next week.
25 Comments
