News: 0001601036

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Rex: Proposed Safe Rust Kernel Extensions For The Linux Kernel, In Place Of eBPF

([Linux Kernel] 3 Hours Ago Rust Rex)


University researchers presented Rex at this month's Linux Plumbers Conference 2025 in Tokyo. Rex is designed for "safe and usable" Rust-based kernel extensions that could serve in place of eBPF programs for extending the Linux kernel functionality.

Still in development form and not yet any decision on upstreaming to the mainline Linux kernel, Rex is a Rust-based kernel extension framework with similar safety guarantees to eBPF. Rex relies on the safety of the Rust programming language paired with lightweight runtime protections.

Researchers from Virgina Tech and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presented at LPC 2025 on Rex. The Rex code hasn't been formally submitted yet to the mailing list for any formal review or attempt at upstreaming to the mainline kernel. Those wanting to check out the Rex documentation and code in its current form can find it via [1]GitHub .

Embedded below is the full LPC 2025 session recording and there are also the associated [2]PDF slides for the proposed Rust safe kernel extensions for Linux.



[1] https://github.com/rex-rs/rex

[2] https://lpc.events/event/19/contributions/2190/attachments/1798/3878/rex-lpc.pdf



What I Did During My Fall Semester
On the first day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.

On the second day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.

On the third day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
I found a thesis topic:
How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover.
-- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday"