Scalable Network I/O in Linux

Abstract

Recent highly publicized benchmarks have suggested that Linux systems do not scale as well as other systems, such as Windows NT, when used as network servers. Windows NT contains features such as I/O completion ports that help boost network server performance and scalability. In this paper we focus on improving the Linux implementation of poll() to reduce the expense of managing large numbers of network connections. We also explore the newer POSIX RT signal API that will help network servers scale into the next decade. A comparison between the two interfaces shows that a server using our /dev/poll interface scales better than a server using RT signals.