We're working on new and interesting open source projects in our labs. Today we're announcing 2 important software components which directly tie into our network stack - helping thousands of people across the world connect to the open Internet.
- PacketFrame: a modular eBPF data-plane framework written in pure Rust. It provides a pluggable runtime for discrete datapath modules (fast-path forwarding, egress randomization, DDoS mitigation, flow sampling) that can be loaded, attached to network interfaces, observed, and detached independently.
The MVP module, and the reason the project exists - is fast-path, which takes forwarded packets for allowlisted prefixes off the kernel's conntrack/netfilter hot path by intercepting them at XDP ingress and redirecting them via bpf_fib_lookup + bpf_redirect_map.
PacketFrame will initially help us take the load off our routers and make them act simply as IP forwarding devices. Currently every packet hits various user space programs and iptables chains which hurts performance. At the moment, this is the only way we can get around this problem. This will allow us to scale our network capacity greater than ever before. The modularity of PacketFrame will allow us to load in additional programs to block DDoS attacks and increase network noise, making traffic analysis more difficult on our NoiseNet.
PacketFrame repo: https://github.com/unredacted/packetframe
What is NoiseNet? https://unredacted.org/blog/2025/05/unredacted-labs/#noisenet
- PacketPath: a network automation platform that detects problems (high latency, packet loss, BGP session failures) across your infrastructure and automatically applies BGP remediation actions through policy-driven rules - with safety interlocks to prevent cascading failures.
PacketPath will allow us to greatly reduce network issues such as congestion and packet loss, allowing us to deploy our NoiseNet network into production. Previously difficult to detect and troubleshoot issues will eventually be remediated automatically.
PacketPath repo: coming soon
Stay tuned for more weekly updates!