How eBPF and XDP Are Reshaping High-Speed Linux Packet Processing
eBPF (extended Berkeley Packet Filter) is a sandboxed virtual machine built into the Linux kernel that allows developers to run verified, safe programs at the kernel level without risking system crashes. XDP (eXpress Data Path) uses eBPF to intercept and process network packets at the earliest possible point — right at the network interface — before they reach the full kernel networking stack. This enables extremely fast operations such as dropping malicious traffic, redirecting packets, modifying headers, and collecting granular traffic statistics. XDP is particularly valuable for mitigating DDoS attacks and enabling load balancing or network function virtualization at high speed. To use XDP and eBPF, developers need a Linux kernel version 4.8 or later along with the Clang and LLVM compiler toolchain.
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