NetEdit: An Orchestration Platform for eBPF Network Functions at Scale

Managing the performance of thousands of services across millions of servers demands a networking stack that can dynamically adjust protocol settings to match diverse priorities and network characteristics. Moreover, given the constantly evolving nature of services and their requirements, the set of configurable protocols must remain adaptable. However, current host networking stacks lack the necessary flexibility and adaptability. Although eBPF shows promise in this regard, it lacks essential primitives for efficient development and safe deployment of multiple co-existing services.

This paper presents our experience developing NetEdit, a system that orchestrates the composition, deployment, and life-cycle management of eBPF programs across a large fleet of servers at Meta. Our design offers a unified abstraction for various kernel hookpoints, decouples policies from programs using a rich configuration language, supports explicit object management for reliable deployment and provides extensive testing methods. NetEdit has been deployed in our production network for five years and now supports thirteen Network Function applications. We have observed that NetEdit-enabled functions improve average service performance by 3X and network performance by 4.6X, showcasing its significant real-world impact.