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URL: https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenVPN-DCO-Linux-25th

⇱ OpenVPN DCO Driver For The Linux Kernel Revised A 25th Time To Boost VPN Performance - Phoronix


👁 Phoronix

OpenVPN DCO Driver For The Linux Kernel Revised A 25th Time To Boost VPN Performance

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Networking on 11 April 2025 at 08:42 AM EDT. 8 Comments
For those relying on OpenVPN for your virtual private networking (VPN) needs, one of the most exciting innovations in recent times besides transitioning to the WireGuard alternative is the OpenVPN DCO kernel driver. This "data channel offload" driver has the potential to provide significant performance advantages over the current OpenVPN performance.

The OpenVPN DCO kernel driver for Linux can yield significant performance benefits albeit it's been a long time in development and has missed out on past opportunities like the hope of having it mainlined back for the Linux v6.14 cycle. But it's still moving along and this week brought the 25th round of working on this kernel driver.

Posted this week was the 25th round of revising the OpenVPN Data Channel Offload driver. This newest attempt brings a number of bug fixes, removing obsolete or otherwise now unneeded code, and a number of other code alterations. There doesn't appear to be any real difference on the OpenVPN DCO performance itself, which was previously shown by OpenVPN Inc as:

👁 OpenVPN DCO benchmark


It does appear that work on the openvpn-dco driver is slowly winding down so perhaps there is hope of finally seeing it with the Linux v6.16 kernel this summer. Those wanting to test out the 25th version of these OpenVPN kernel driver patches can find them on the LKML.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.