Support `ARM64_64K_PAGES` / `ARM64_16K_PAGES` variants

[izaakschroeder]

What I'd like:

Pre-built image with 16k/64k stack size on aarch64. IIRC the kernel flag(s) for this:

• PAGE_SIZE_64KB
• ARM64_64K_PAGES
• PAGE_SIZE_16KB
• ARM64_16K_PAGES

Supposedly unlocks faster performance for modern/heavy workloads – something I'd be curious to test for K8S database workloads.

Also on Cilium using acceleration: native relies on XDP which requires working on single pages – the 4kb page sizes means an MTU of ~3500 (4kb minus overhead), and larger page sizes would theoretically allow for using this hardware acceleration with MTU of 9000 (something I would also like to test).

Any alternatives you've considered:

Trying to make a custom build myself but preferably don't want to have to keep "rebasing" my custom image. Would like to use /aws/service/bottlerocket/aws-k8s-${clusterVersion}/aarch64-64k/latest/image_id or something similar. Sadly AFAIK this option is only a kernel build-time parameter 😢

[ginglis13]

Hi @izaakschroeder, thanks for the feature request.

You're correct that page size is a kernel build-time parameter, which makes this challenging from a distribution perspective for Bottlerocket. Creating variants with different page sizes would require significantly expanding our current variant matrix, increasing our build, test, and maintenance overhead. Upstream, there is consideration to make this a boot-time configuration as opposed to build time, which would be preferable: https://lwn.net/Articles/993990/. For now, building a custom image as you mentioned might be the most viable path forward.

We'll keep this issue open to track interest in the feature.