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fix: require kernel 5.8, the first with BPF ring buffers - #363
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L7 events go through a BPF ring buffer, which every program variant uses. The startup check still accepted kernels from 4.16, so on 4.16-5.7 the agent got past it and failed later, loading the programs, with a less clear error. The README said 5.1. The check and the README now say 5.8.
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This pull request updates the minimum required Linux kernel version from 4.16 to 5.8 in main.go and from 5.1 to 5.8 in README.md. This change is necessary because L7 events now utilize a BPF ring buffer (BPF_MAP_TYPE_RINGBUF), which is unsupported on kernels older than 5.8. I have no feedback to provide.
RamanKharchee
approved these changes
Oct 6, 2026
This was referenced Oct 6, 2026
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Summary
L7 events go through a BPF ring buffer (
BPF_MAP_TYPE_RINGBUF), which every program variant uses. Kernels before 5.8 don't have one. The startup check still accepted kernels from 4.16, so on 4.16–5.7 the agent got past it, initialized, and then failed loading the programs withmap l7_events: map create: invalid argument. The README gave 5.1 as the minimum.The check and the README now say 5.8, and the error names the reason.
Engineering detail
Local e2e: built the agent from this branch and from main against glibc 2.31 and ran both on a 5.4 kernel VM (Ubuntu 20.04, arm64). main: passed the version check, initialized for 4s, then
failed to load collection: map l7_events: map create: invalid argument. This branch: exits at once withthe minimum Linux kernel version required is 5.8 or later (BPF ring buffer). On a 6.1 kernel VM this branch starts normally and serves its metrics.