io_uring
io_uring (previously known as aioring) is a Linux kernel system call interface for storage device asynchronous I/O operations addressing performance issues with similar interfaces provided by functions like read()
/write()
or aio_read()
/aio_write()
etc. for operations on data accessed by file descriptors.[1][2]: 2
Development is ongoing, worked on primarily by Jens Axboe at Meta.[1]
Interface[edit]
It works by creating two circular buffers, called "queue rings", for storage of submission and completion of I/O requests, respectively. For storage devices, these are called the submission queue (SQ) and completion queue (CQ).[3] Keeping these buffers shared between the kernel and application helps to boost the I/O performance by eliminating the need to issue extra and expensive system calls to copy these buffers between the two.[1][4][3] According to the io_uring design paper, the SQ buffer is writable only by consumer applications, and the CQ buffer is writable only by the kernel.[1]: 3
History[edit]
The kernel interface was adopted in Linux kernel version 5.1.[1][4][5] The liburing
library provides an API to interact with the kernel interface easily from userspace.[1][1]: 12 The Linux kernel has supported asynchronous I/O since version 2.5, but it was seen as difficult to use and inefficient.[6] This older API only supported certain niche use cases.[7]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g "Linux Kernel Getting io_uring To Deliver Fast & Efficient I/O - Phoronix". Phoronix. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Axboe, Jens (October 15, 2019). "Efficient IO with io_uring" (PDF).
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b "Getting Hands-on with io_uring using Go". developers.mattermost.com. Retrieved 2021-11-20.
- ^ a b "The rapid growth of io_uring [LWN.net]". lwn.net. Retrieved 2021-11-20.
- ^ "Faster IO through io_uring | Kernel Recipes 2019". Retrieved 2021-03-14.
- ^ Corbet, Jonathan. "Ringing in a new asynchronous I/O API". LWN.net. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "What's new with io_uring" (PDF). Retrieved 2022-06-01.
External links[edit]
- Efficient I/O with io_uring, in-depth description of motivation behind io_uring, interface (data structures etc.), and performance assessment
liburing
source repositoryio_uring
source directory in the Linux kernel repository