Linux 6.18 Network Performance Significantly Enhanced: Stronger DDoS Defense and New Hardware Support
Linux 6.18 Network Performance Significantly Enhanced: Stronger DDoS Defense and New Hardware Support
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Linux 6.18 Network Performance Significantly Enhanced: Stronger DDoS Defense and New Hardware Support
October 6 — The network subsystem updates for Linux 6.18 have been officially merged, bringing multiple performance optimizations, new hardware support, and security improvements to the upcoming kernel version.
These enhancements cover both wired and wireless network devices, providing stronger network performance and stability for Linux 6.18, which is expected to become a Long-Term Support (LTS) release.
Core Performance Optimizations
Enhanced DDoS Defense: For Linux servers under distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, the kernel has improved scalability and throughput performance, enabling better system stability under high-load attack conditions.
TCP Encryption Protocol: Google’s PSP (PSP Security Protocol) has been officially introduced to enable in-transit encryption for TCP connections.
Low-Latency Transmission Optimization: Continued advancement of ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification) acceleration and related work toward achieving L4S (Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput) objectives.
Multi-NUMA Host Optimization: Enhanced TCP and UDP receive processing efficiency on large multi-NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) hosts.
Multipath Transport Protocol: Improved transmission path performance by adjusting TCP socket binary structures to increase data locality and reduce cache footprint. MPTCP receive efficiency has been further enhanced.
New Hardware Support
Wired Networking
- Huawei third-generation Network Interface Card (NIC) driver (hinic3)
- Qualcomm IPQ9574 SoC Ethernet support
- Added support for Aquantia AQR412, AQR115, and Micrel LAN8842 Ethernet PHYs
- Airoha WLAN offloading via Network Processing Unit (NPU)
- New SpacemiT K1 Ethernet MAC driver
Wireless Networking
- MediaTek MT7925 Bluetooth device ID support
- Intel BlazarIW core and Panther Lake-H484 Bluetooth support
- New WiFi NAN (Neighbor Awareness Networking) extended functionality
- Airoha NPU wireless offloading support
- Realtek RTW89 driver support for RTL8922DE chipset
These comprehensive updates position Linux 6.18 as a significant release for network infrastructure, particularly benefiting enterprise servers, data centers, and systems requiring robust network performance under demanding conditions.
