The next release of the Linux kernel, 6.6 [will] include the KSMBD in-kernel server for the SMB networking protocol, developed by Samsung’s Namjae Jeon.
it has faced considerable security testing and as a result it is no longer marked as experimental.
It’s compatible with existing Samba configuration files.
But why is KSMBD important? First off, it promises considerable performance gains and better support for modern features such as Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)… KSMBD also adds enhanced security, considerably better performance for both single and multi-thread read/write, better stability, and higher compatibility. In the end, hopefully, this KSMBD will also mean easier share setups in Linux without having to jump through the same hoops one must with the traditional Samba setup.
Oh, so the attack service is much bigger than I realized. The NIC is probably the last thing I’d want writing directly to memory and bypassing the kernel.
I guess none of this will be enabled in desktop distros or even the majority of server distros…right?
I was under the impression this is already the norm for network equipment because the vast amount of data is no longer processable by the kernel. In fairness though that equipment most likely doesn’t really consume the data but rather just forwards.