Posts

Showing posts with the label ZFS overview

Linux Netfilter architecture

Linux Netfilter architecture Read Aloud Stop Reading Linux Netfilter architecture The Linux Netfilter is a framework for packet mangling, filtering, and network address translation in the Linux kernel. It provides a flexible and extensible mechanism for implementing various types of network security policies, traffic shaping, and other network-related tasks. In this article, we will explore the architecture of the Linux Netfilter and its various components. At the core of the Linux Netfilter architecture is the packet processing engine, which receives incoming packets and processes them according to a set of rules defined by the system administrator. The packet processing engine is implemented as a set of hooks in the Linux kernel, which are invoked at various stages of packet processing. The hooks are organized into five different chains, each of which is associated with a different stage of packet processing. The five chains are: PREROUTING: This chain is invoked

Berkeley Packet Filter architecture

Berkeley Packet Filter architecture Read Aloud Stop Reading Berkeley Packet Filter architecture Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) is a virtual machine designed for efficiently filtering and processing network packets in a way that minimizes kernel overhead. It was first introduced in the 4.3BSD Unix operating system in the early 1990s and has since been adopted by many other operating systems, including Linux, macOS, and Windows. BPF operates by allowing userspace programs to define filters that are applied to network packets as they pass through the kernel. These filters can match on various packet header fields and other properties, and can perform a wide range of actions, including dropping, accepting, or modifying packets. The BPF virtual machine is designed to be extremely efficient, both in terms of memory usage and runtime performance. BPF filters are compiled just once, at filter load time, and then executed efficiently by the kernel on each incoming

Path of a packet through a kernel

Path of a packet through a kernel Read Aloud Stop Reading Path of a packet through a kernel The path of a packet through a kernel can be quite complex, involving multiple layers of processing and several different subsystems. In this answer, we will describe the basic steps that a packet might take as it travels through a typical kernel. Receiving the Packet The first step in processing a packet is to receive it from the network interface. This typically involves a device driver that is specific to the particular interface being used. The driver reads the packet from the interface and copies it into a buffer in memory. Protocol Decapsulation Once the packet has been received, the kernel must determine which protocol it is using. This is typically done by examining the protocol field in the packet header. The kernel then passes the packet to the appropriate protocol layer, which is responsible for decapsulating the packet and extracting any data that it contains.

OpenSolaris boot environments and snapshots

OpenSolaris boot environments and snapshots Read Aloud Stop Reading OpenSolaris boot environments and snapshots OpenSolaris boot environments and snapshots are two powerful features that allow for system administrators to easily manage and maintain their operating system installations. These features were introduced in OpenSolaris and have since been adopted by other operating systems, including Solaris and Illumos. Boot environments provide a way to create and manage multiple instances of an operating system on the same machine, allowing for easy rollback in case of system failures or errors. Each boot environment is a self-contained instance of the operating system, including the kernel, device drivers, and user-space applications. Multiple boot environments can coexist on the same disk, each with its own unique configuration and set of installed packages. Snapshots, on the other hand, are a way to capture a point-in-time image of a file system or ZFS dataset.

ZFS overview

ZFS overview Read Aloud Stop Reading ZFS overview ZFS, or the Zettabyte File System, is a high-performance and scalable file system developed by Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle Corporation). It was initially designed for Solaris, but it has since been ported to several other operating systems such as FreeBSD, Linux, and macOS. ZFS is a copy-on-write file system that offers many advanced features such as data compression, snapshots, RAID-Z (an equivalent to RAID-5 but with better performance and reliability), and data integrity verification through checksumming. It also has a 128-bit addressing space, which means it can handle extremely large data sets and file systems. One of the key features of ZFS is its support for dynamic striping across multiple disks, which allows it to perform read and write operations in parallel across multiple devices, improving overall performance. ZFS also has built-in support for automatic error detection and correction,