Aya is a library that allows writing eBPF programs, as well as their user-space counterparts, entirely in Rust. It has been presented in previous editions of FOSDEM, but the project has evolved since then. In this talk, we will highlight what has changed, what’s coming next, and how these developments shape the Rust-and-eBPF ecosystem.

Over the last year, Aya has gained support for several new eBPF program types, as well as additional map types, such as the family of storage maps (sk_storage, task_storage, inode_storage). We’ve worked with the LLVM community to enable BTF generation for Rust eBPF programs. The overall developer experience has continued to improve, and an increasing number of open-source projects are now building on top of Aya.

We will also share updates on our ongoing work, most notably our efforts to promote Rust’s eBPF targets to Tier 2, paving the way for building eBPF programs on Rust stable without requiring nightly toolchains. Alongside this, we are developing support for BTF relocation emission, refining the user-space XDP API, and broadening coverage of program and map types.

The talk will dive into the technical details behind these features, the architectural decisions that shaped them, and the challenges ahead. We will conclude with our vision for Aya’s future and how we see it moving forward.