epoll: The API that powers the modern internet · Graham King

Linux's epoll API solved the C10K problem, enabling fast and afforable Internet services.

Summary I used epoll, a crucial Linux feature, to efficiently handle network requests on the Internet. This allows Go to excel in server programming, powers nginx as the leading web server, and facilitates 'async' programming in languages like Rust. Before epoll, servers relied on process or thread pools, which struggled with scaling and performance during high traffic, as highlighted by the C10K problem. Epoll, introduced by Davide Libenzi in 2001, revolutionized the handling of thousands of concurrent connections by enabling a single thread to manage many sockets efficiently. It employs a ma

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