6G • Core Network
eBPF/XDP Engine
Kernel-Bypass User Plane Processing in Core
Executing safe sandboxed byte-code directly inside operating system network drivers to route and filter 6G packets without CPU context switching.
Technical Explanation
Traditional software routers incur massive CPU overhead copying packets between the Linux operating system kernel and user-space applications. Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) and eXpress Data Path (XDP) execute sandboxed byte-code directly at the network interface card (NIC) driver level. In 6G Micro-UPF nodes, eBPF processes, filters, and forwards packets at line rate (100+ Gbps) with near-zero CPU consumption.
Key Functions
- Routing and filtering packets directly inside network device drivers at line rate
- Eliminating kernel-to-user-space memory copying and expensive CPU context switches
- Programmable packet inspection and micro-firewalling executed in sub-microseconds
- Dynamically reloading packet filtering rules on live systems with zero downtime
- Lightweight foundation for cloud-native Micro-UPF instances on edge servers
Specifications
Linux Foundation eBPF / IO Visor Project, 3GPP Rel-19 Edge Upf
Interfaces
XDP-DrivereBPF-Bytecode-Bus
Related 6G Concepts
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