Linux 5.7's Netfilter framework is set to see better performance on modern Intel and AMD systems thanks to AVX2 optimizations.

Queued on Sunday in nf-next as the Netfilter staging grounds are AVX2 optimizations to provide great speed benefits.

Red Hat's Stefano Brivio has provided an AVX2-optimized nft_set_pipapo implementation. AVX2 works out well for optimizing the packet lookup routines of the Netfilter Pile Packet Policies.

In a test of injecting packets directly onto the in-going device path, an AMD EPYC 7402 "Rome" server where the testing took place was found to be significantly faster. The improvements varied from +26% to +420% with many of the tests being above the +100% range with this AVX2 implementation.

With Red Hat caring about all architectures, Stefano is also looking at a similar Arm NEON optimized version moving forward too.

This Netfilter AVX2 nft_set_pipapo implementation should see the light of day with the upcoming Linux 5.7 cycle with it already being part of nf-next.