The BSD Packet Filter: A New Architecture for User-level Packet Capture

Many versions of Unix provide facilities for user-level packet capture, making possible the use of general purpose workstations for network monitoring. Because network monitors run as user-level processes, packets must be copied across the kernel/user-space protection boundary. This copying can be minimized by deploying a kernel agent called a packet filter, which discards unwanted packets as early as possible. The original Unix packet filter was designed around a stack-based filter evaluator that performs sub-optimally on current RISC CPUs. The BSD Packet Filter (BPF) uses a new, registerbased filter evaluator that is up to 20 times faster than the original design. BPF also uses a straightforward buffering strategy that makes its overall performance up to 100 times faster than Sun’s NIT running on the same hardware.