io_uring ZCRX: Progress and Next Steps#
Netdev 0x1A (Rome, 13-16 July 2026) digest Program Adjacent pick Rome · 13–16 July 2026
Pavel Begunkov
Why: Zero-copy receive that keeps the normal stack (and its tooling and observability) is the pragmatic alternative to kernel bypass; since 6.15 it has been real, and this is the honest status report.
What: Recent ZCRX developments, API additions, and the open questions blocking broader adoption. How: The named problems are refill-queue exhaustion when buffers can't be recycled, sharing a NIC queue between multiple processes, and letting applications detect memory pressure before allocation failures bite. (From abstract only.)
Where applicable: Linux 6.15+ hosts with supported NICs; general-purpose high-throughput services rather than specialist bypass workloads.