1.99. libaio

An enhanced libaio package is now available.

The Linux-native asynchronous I/O facility ("async I/O" or "aio") has a richer API and capability set than the simple POSIX asynchronous I/O facility. This library, libaio, provides the Linux-native API for asynchronous I/O. The POSIX asynchronous I/O facility requires this library in order to provide kernel-accelerated asynchronous I/O capabilities, as do applications which require the Linux-native asynchronous I/O API.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux lacked support for eventfd, which generates file descriptors. These descriptors are used to provide an event wait/notify mechanism for userspace applications. eventfd has now been added to the API and integrated with Asynchronous Input/Output (AIO). It eliminates the need to use pipes to signal events, reducing kernel overhead as it does not consume two file descriptors each time, as the previous method did. eventfd also offers an fd-bridge and can be used to signal the readiness of interfaces that would otherwise be incompatible with the Linux kernel. (BZ#540626)

Users are advised to upgrade to this updated libaio package, which adds this enhanced functionality. [Kernel update needed: RHBA-2009:9260]