← Back to Product Feed

Hacker News Show HN: DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF

No tagline provided.

53
Traction Score
14
Discussions
Sep 11, 2026
Launch Date
View Origin Link

Product Positioning & Context

Some time ago my coworker who was working on first version of Perforator (https://github.com/yandex/perforator) kept talking about eBPF, so I got curious about its ISA and restrictions. That was around the time I read about DOOM on pregnancy test, so I thought: "what if someone run DOOM inside of Linux kernel in eBPF? Surely, with some restrictions, this should still be possible?"I started to play around with it somewhere in 2024 - first stripping DOOM to bare minimum that is needed for showcase, simplifying code and trying to pass first restrictions that I encountered - function limit, recursion, memory access and checks. I tried to do this by hand, but it was, well, tedious labor. So I changed direction and instead started to do some of the things with LLVM-passes - rewriting memory access, simplifying and rewriting loops etc. But there were just so many corners. And given absence of time and all, I forgot about this project.But couple months ago I thought: "LLMs are quite good nowadays, so why not try again this time with more hands". I tried different approaches on how memory access could be "virtualized", how loops can be made bounded, and in general - how to run unbounded logic on such a machine.When I got DOOM running, I got carried away. Approach was so "generic", so it would be a crime not to try to run more things. And now we have it - lua running on xdp hot path, llama2 working with softfloats, and even cpython, that did not fit initially into 1M verifier budget, is running there now thanks to freplace.There is ton of work to do in order to make programs run faster, to make integration easier, but working examples are already there.

Related Ecosystem & Alternatives

Discover adjacent products, open-source repositories, and developer tools sharing similar technical architecture.

Deep-Dive FAQs

What is DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF?
DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF is a digital product or tool described as: Some time ago my coworker who was working on first version of Perforator (https://github.com/yandex/perforator) kept talking about eBPF, so I got c...
Where did DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF originate?
Data for DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF was aggregated directly from the Hacker News community ecosystem, representing raw developer and early-adopter sentiment.
When was DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF publicly launched?
The initial public indexing or launch date for DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF within our tracked developer communities was recorded on September 11, 2026.
How popular is DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF?
DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF has achieved measurable traction, logging over 53 traction score and facilitating 14 recorded discussions or engagements.
How does the creator describe DOOM in the kernel, or fibers in eBPF?
The original author or development team describes the product as follows: "Some time ago my coworker who was working on first version of Perforator (https://github.com/yandex/perforator) kept talking about eBPF, so I got curious about its ISA and restrictions. That was ar..."

Community Voice & Feedback

krttherealest • Sep 11, 2026
legendary game
morolis • Sep 11, 2026
I've been thinking about this question how can I run general-purpose programs in eBPF? I look u idea, It's cool!
markrwilliams • Sep 10, 2026
Skip the first half of the article to learn how the project overcame eBPF programs' limited runtime environment:"On Linux 6.9 and newer (6.10 on arm64, where JIT support for the arena landed later), the window is backed by bpf_arena... On kernels without a usable arena, the same four gigabytes are assembled from 4-MiB pieces... [in] separate global-data maps."These maps are of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_ARRAY.See https://lwn.net/Articles/961941/ for a discussion of `bpf_arena`.
phishin • Sep 10, 2026
I appreciate adherence to the all caps requirement.
tptacek • Sep 10, 2026
There's so much good content in here, it's a shame you sandblasted your writeup with AI. "To the verifier, it is a number with a biography" is where I veered off the road and into a culvert.

Discovery Source

Hacker News Hacker News

Aggregated via automated community intelligence tracking.

Tech Stack Dependencies

No direct open-source NPM package mentions detected in the product documentation.

Media Tractions & Mentions

No mainstream media stories specifically mentioning this product name have been intercepted yet.

Deep Research & Science

No direct peer-reviewed scientific literature matched with this product's architecture.