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520 points OlympicMarmoto | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.744s | source
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gorset ◴[] No.45067783[source]
Mechanisms for getting the linux kernel out of the way is pretty decent these days, and CPUs with a lot of cores are common. That means you can isolate a bunch of cores and pin threads the way you want, and then use some kernel-bypass to access hardware directly. Communicate between cores using ring buffers.

This gives you best of both worlds - carefully designed system for the hardware with near optimal performance, and still with the ability to take advantage of the full linux kernel for management, monitoring, debugging, etc.

replies(1): >>45069273 #
1. ronsor ◴[] No.45069273[source]
> use some kernel-bypass to access hardware directly

You can always mmap /dev/mem to get at physical memory.

replies(1): >>45070276 #
2. fooker ◴[] No.45070276[source]
No, that's not really what kernel bypass means.
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3. oasisaimlessly ◴[] No.45072699[source]
Accessing hardware directky via /dev/mem is literally the original kernel bypass strategy, before we got the UIO and VFIO APIs to do it in a blessed way.