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io_uring: So Fast. It's Scary.

Paul Moore

Blue TeamLinux Security Summit Europe50 minAdvancedOpen on YouTube ↗

Details io_uring: So Fast. Its Scary and evaluates key implications for security practitioners.

Summary

Overview: A presenter at Linux Security Summit Europe delivers a deep dive on io_uring, Linux's high-performance asynchronous I/O interface, examining its security implications.

Key Topics: io_uring as asynchronous I/O replacing synchronous syscall overhead; submission and completion queues; shared memory rings between kernel and userspace; and security considerations for the attack surface.

Technical Details: The talk explains io_uring's architecture where applications submit multiple I/O requests without waiting, using shared ring buffers for kernel-userspace communication. The speaker notes this replaces traditional open/read/write syscall paths.

Takeaways: io_uring's performance benefits come with a new attack surface via shared kernel-userspace memory. Security researchers and defenders should audit io_uring usage in privileged applications.

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