EBPF RING BUFFER VS PERF BUFFER

Summary from the TLDR InfoSec newsletter

Ring buffer, introduced in Linux 5.8, replaced the legacy perf buffer as the recommended mechanism for kernel-to-userspace data transfer in eBPF programs. It uses a single shared circular buffer across all CPUs instead of per-CPU buffers, eliminating cross-CPU event ordering complexity and reducing copy overhead. This article walks through both implementations in C and Go using cilium/ebpf, demonstrating how the ring buffer's reserve-and-submit model via bpf_ringbuf_reserve and bpf_ringbuf_submit provides a simpler, higher-throughput path compared to perf buffer's bpf_perf_event_output approach. For security tooling built on eBPF tracing, the ring buffer is now the default choice for structured event streaming from kernel-level monitors to usersp.