Linux Networking News Archives

The latest high profile open-source project to commit to an AI coding policy is NetworkManager, the widely-used software for Linux network configuration.

While the Linux WiFi/wireless maintainer just announced taking a stand against AI/LLM generated slop patches with a new "three second review" rule, the broader Linux networking subsystem continues to be bombarded with AI-generated patches.

In addition to the Linux kernel staging area now rejecting AI/LLM-generated patches except for real security fixes, the Linux wireless networking code is also seeing some shifts around how it will deal with AI/LLM generated patches.

Within the Linux networking subsystem's "net-next" Git branch there is now queued up support for MCTP-over-USB v1.1. This is the newest version of the standard for sending Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP) packets over USB for tasks like crash dumps, logging, and firmware updates.

Queued into net-next ahead of the Linux 7.3 merge window is adding support for the Realtek RTL8261C and RTL8261D 10 Gigabit PHYs that launched last year.

Since 2017 in Linux 4.12 has been the Realtek rtl8723bs WiFi driver where it was introduced into the staging area and remains there nearly a decade later. The rtl8723bs driver for this Realtek 802.11n WiFi SDIO driver has seen a lot of code cleaning over the years and all these years later still is needing lots of code clean-ups from unnecessary code abstractions to dealing with malicious WiFi APs for what Greg Kroah-Hartman has called a "beast of a driver". The latest twist is there now being patches for adding Realtek RTL8723BS and RTL8723B onto the existing RTW88 driver.

Firewire still isn't dead yet on Linux. Current plans call for maintaining IEEE-1394 Firewire on Linux at least through 2029 and with today's Linux 7.2-rc5 kernel release is a fix for those wanting to leverage IPv4 networking over Firewire.

NetworkManager 1.58 is out today with the latest feature enhancements for bettering wired and wireless network management on Linux.

Some extremely cool patches were posted to the Linux kernel mailing list on Sunday. The patches for "KNOD" allow for in-kernel network offloading to GPUs with an initial focus on AMD GPU support. What makes this all the more nifty is that it doesn't depend upon any user-space libraries like AMD ROCm but is all handled in-kernel with driving the GPU directly.

The staging driver fixes that were sent out this week ahead of the Linux 7.2-rc3 release is predominantly made up of hardening the Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi driver. In particular, a number of fixes for addressing out-of-bounds behavior when connecting to "bad" WiFi hosts.

The Linux kernel's AF_ALG interface was deprecated in Linux 7.2. This interface for letting user-space programs interact directly with the Linux kernel crypto API has proven to be a "massive attack surface" due to a variety of security concerns. With its deprecation in Linux 7.2, some AF_ALG features are already removed and for Linux 7.3 this interface is being further restrained.

In 2026 it's not too surprising when seeing old PCMCIA and ISA drivers being removed from the mainline Linux kernel source tree and old very low-speed network interfaces, with arguably the most surprising fact being how long they lasted in the mainline kernel. Meanwhile for the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel, one of the first 10Gb Ethernet drivers is already set for retirement from the mainline Linux kernel.

Way back in 2017 for the Linux 4.12 kernel the Realtek rtl8723bs WiFi driver was added to the kernel's staging area. Nearly a decade later, it's still being cleaned-up to suit the more rigorous non-staging area of the kernel in the formal networking subsystem. For Linux 7.2, the staging pull request is once again dominated by clean-ups to this Realtek WiFi driver.

The networking subsystem changes have been merged for Linux 7.2 with a lot happening around the core networking code as well as the many wired and wireless networking device drivers.

One of the new network drivers destined for the upcoming Linux 7.2 merge window is for supporting the Airoha AN8801R Gigabit Ethernet PHY.

The Linux kernel's AF_ALG interface for user-space applications to directly access the Linux kernel's built-in cryptographic engine is proceeding with a quick deprecation cycle due to a "massive attack surface" with increased vulnerabilities coming to light due to AI/LLM-based tooling.

Going back to early 2023 there were efforts to disable all the Linux drivers for Microoft's RNDIS protocol. Remote NDIS has proven to be a real security concern while superior, modern alternatives exist.

Last week's collection of networking subsystem fixes for Linux 7.1 noted craziness continuing with no end in sight with a large pull request of fixes with many of them spurred on by AI/LLM coding agents. This week it's "significantly bigger" than prior kernel cycles for this late stage of kernel development due to this assistance of large language models.

With Linux 7.1 ISDN, ham radio, and other old network code was removed in lightening the kernel source tree by around 138 thousand lines of code. Some additional Linux networking code cleaning is expected for Linux 7.2 with the ISA and PCMCIA hardware around ARCnet set to be removed.

Driven by AI/LLM bots like Shashiko uncovering new issues within the Linux kernel source tree, including various security vulnerabilities like Dirty Frag, the mailing list has been wild with bug reports and fixes. Today's networking fixes pull request for Linux 7.1 continues to highlight the ongoing craziness and fears that the worst may be yet to come.

The Realtek RTL8159 has been appearing in some 10G-rated USB network adapters at online retailers, some for less than $100 USD. But currently the RTL8159 is only supported by Realtek's out-of-tree Linux kernel driver, but fortunately there will be mainline support coming with the Linux 7.2 kernel this summer.

Linus Torvalds did it! He merged the pull request to rid the Linux kernel of the old Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) subsystem and various other old network drivers largely for PCMCIA era network adapters. This was the code suggested for removal given the recent influx of AI/LLM-generated bug reports against this dated code that likely has no active upstream users remaining.

It was just days ago we reported on a proposal to drop old network drivers due to AI-driven bug reports becoming a burden on upstream kernel developers. Last night that culminated with an initial pull request to clear out some old, unused networking drivers plus also clearing out the entire ISDN subsystem and more.

Merged recently to Linux Git were the big set of networking changes for the Linux 7.1 kernel.

Separate from the recently discussed work on MediaTek MT7927 "Filogic 380" support being worked on for the MT76 Linux driver (still undergoing review), a number of other MediaTek MT76 wireless driver improvements are queued up ahead of the Linux 7.1 merge window opening as soon as next week.

Sent out today were the networking subsystem fixes for the ongoing Linux 7.0 kernel. These networking fixes in time for Sunday's Linux 7.0-rc7 release include addressing performance issues within the Qualcomm Ath11k and Ath12k WiFi drivers that have always existed ever since the drivers were upstreamed.

Longtime Linux developer David Woodhouse sent out a patch series today to "deprecate legacy IP" support within the Linux kernel. While some of his commentary his April 1st-esque, he does acknowledge much of this work has merit. Ultimately it can allow for building a Linux kernel with IPv6-only support and working on allowing "legacy" IPv4 support to be disabled as part of the kernel build.

In addition to the MediaTek MT7902 WiFI Linux support emerging in recent months, the Linux support for the MediaTek MT7927 is also coming together for WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support for the upstream Linux kernel.

Released this week was Nginx 1.29.7 as the newest mainline version of this HTTP(S) web server. Releasing alongside Nginx 1.28.3 stable, it fixed buffer overflow vulnerabilities and some other vulnerabilities. Making Nginx 1.29.7 more exciting though is that it landed Multipath TCP support.

Samba continues strong in 2026 for this leading open-source SMB protocol re-implementation for Microsoft Windows file and print services interoperability. Samba 4.24 brings more features, including remote password management support.

The upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel cycle is set to retire UDP-Lite support. The UDP-Lite protocol allowed for partial checksums where potentially damaged/corrupted packets are still delivered to the application. Since the Linux 2.6.20 days there has been UDP-Lite support but the kernel is now set to retire it given breakage that has persisted for years and cleaning up the networking code can yield a performance advantage for non-UDP-Lite users.

Currently the Linux IPv6 networking stack can be built into the Linux kernel, built as a loadable kernel module, or not built at all. With proposed patches from a SUSE engineer, the IPv6 networking stack would be limited to being a kernel built-in or not at all. In doing away with IPv6 as a loadable kernel module would allow simplifying some code and lowering the Linux networking maintenance burden.

When searching for "MT7902" and "Linux" there is no shortage of users asking about Linux driver support for the Mediatek MT7902 WiFi chipset or users complaining about their MT7902 WiFi not working under Linux with that chipset found in numerous laptops in recent years. Fortunately, there is finally Linux driver support for the MT7902 surfacing for review on the Linux kernel mailing list.

Introduced to the Linux 4.12 kernel's staging area back in 2017 was the Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi driver. The Realtek RTL8723BS is an 802.11 b/g/ SDIO WLAN adapter with Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity too. In the nearly decade since this driver was added to the staging area, it's continued to be cleaned up and with the Linux 7.0 merge window there is yet again a lot of work on cleaning up this WiFi driver for the old Realtek hardware.

The Linux 7.0 networking pull request showcases two extremes and the diversity and robustness of the open-source kernel ecosystem. Linux 7.0 is laying the groundwork for WiFi 8 Ultra-High Reliability (UHR) support while this kernel version is also bidding farewell to the last Ethernet driver for use over parallel printer ports.

For those using the open-source OpenVPN for your virtual private networking (VPN) needs, OpenVPN 2.7 is out today with some notable improvements.

The core timer changes to the Linux 7.0 kernel score a rather nice performance improvement in a UDP receive network stress test from inlining a function that compilers haven't been able to tackle with their optimizations.

Merged four years ago to the Linux kernel networking subsystem's Shared Memory Communications (SMC) code was TCP Upper Layer Protocol (ULP) support for allowing applications to replace TCP with the SMC protocol in-place as a transparent replacement. Except for the next kernel cycle it's set to be reverted after realizing it's "fundamentally broken."

Slated for introduction in the next kernel cycle (Linux 6.20~7.0) is introducing large receive buffer support for IO_uring's zero-copy receive code path. This large receive buffer support can be very beneficial for those with higher-end networking hardware capable of handling the larger buffers for some significant performance and efficiency wins.

While the Linux kernel has been seeing preparations from NVIDIA for 1.6 Tb/s networking in preparing for next-generation super-computing, the kernel has still retained support to now for the High Performance Parallel Interface. HIPPI was the standard for connecting supercomputers in the late 1980s and a portion of the 1990s with being the first networking standard for near-Gigabit connectivity at 800 Mb/s over distances up to 25 meters. But HIPPI looks like it will be retired from the mainline kernel with Linux 7.0.

Queued into the Linux networking subsystem's "net-next" branch ahead of the Linux 6.20~7.0 merge window next month is cake_mq as a multi-queue aware variant of the sch_cake network scheduler. The intent with cake_mq is to better scale the network traffic rate shaper across multiple CPU cores.

Merged to Linux Git on New Year's Eve was a fix in the form of a code revert for broken MediaTek WiFi on the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel.

The Swedish VPN service Mullvad announced this week GotaTun, an open-source Rust-based WireGuard implementation that is forked from Cloudflare's BoringTun.

The big set of networking subsystem updates was recently merged for the ongoing Linux 6.19 merge window. There are some enticing core networking improvements like a big performance improvement for heavy transfer workloads, Bluetooth PAST enablement, and more. Plus a lot of wired and wireless networking driver activity and new hardware enablement.

Queued up via the Linux kernel's RDMA development Git tree is "BNG_RE" as the next-generation RoCE driver from Broadcom.

The upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel cycle is set to introduce support for the Realtek RTL8125K as a forthcoming Ethernet ASIC.

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) usage is long obsolete even where it had enjoyed some successes in the likes of Germany and Norway. With no activity in years to the ISDN and mISDN subsystem code for the Linux kernel, a patch was sent out today for orphaning the code.

Upstreamed for the current Linux 6.18 cycle was finally having mainline support for the ESWIN EIC770 SoC with its four SiFive P550 cores plus having the DeviceTree support for the SiFive HiFive Premier P550 RISC-V development board using that SoC. Sadly not making it though for Linux 6.18 was the Ethernet controller support for the EIC7700 SoC but that is now destined to arrive in Linux 6.19.

Posted to the Linux networking mailing list on Wednesday were the latest patches for enabling the Homa transport protocol. Homa is the clean-sheet design aiming to become an alternative to TCP within data centers and capable of offering 10~100x reductions in tail latency for short messages.

Announced nearly one year ago was the OpenWrt One as a router/AP that is "hacker-friendly" and open-source. The OpenWrt One is powered by a Filogic 820 SoC and features WiFi 6. This official OpenWrt device is manufactured by Banana Pi. While there is downstream open-source code available for customizing the OpenWrt One to your heart's content, the upstream Linux kernel support to date hasn't been full-featured.