I/O Passthru: Upstreaming a Flexible and Efficient I/O Path in Linux

Explore a technical presentation from FAST '24 that introduces I/O Passthru, a new I/O Path in the Linux Kernel. Delve into the challenges of integrating emerging storage interfaces with general-purpose I/O stacks in operating systems. Learn about the key components of I/O Passthru, including the NVMe char interface and io_uring command. Discover how this innovation enables the adoption of new NVMe technologies without requiring changes to the Linux kernel. Examine experimental results comparing I/O Passthru's efficiency to existing io_uring block paths and its flexibility in integrating data placement into Cachelib. Gain insights into the performance improvements, with FIO peak performance workloads demonstrating 16–40% higher IOPS than the block path.