OS Kernel & Hardware DMA

Zero-Copy I/O: read/write vs sendfile()

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Storage

File blocks on SSD/HDD

device

Disk controller

Issues disk DMA

device

Page cache

Kernel-resident file pages

kernel

User buffer

Application-visible payload

user

Socket queue

Payload bytes or page references

kernel

NIC

Network transmission DMA

device
0context switches
0CPU payload copies
0DMA payload moves
0descriptor ops
Causal routes: Teal = Hardware DMA. Gold = CPU memcpy. Dashed Purple = Descriptor reference.