1 Linux Socket Filtering aka Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF)
2 =======================================================
7 Linux Socket Filtering (LSF) is derived from the Berkeley Packet Filter.
8 Though there are some distinct differences between the BSD and Linux
9 Kernel filtering, but when we speak of BPF or LSF in Linux context, we
10 mean the very same mechanism of filtering in the Linux kernel.
12 BPF allows a user-space program to attach a filter onto any socket and
13 allow or disallow certain types of data to come through the socket. LSF
14 follows exactly the same filter code structure as BSD's BPF, so referring
15 to the BSD bpf.4 manpage is very helpful in creating filters.
17 On Linux, BPF is much simpler than on BSD. One does not have to worry
18 about devices or anything like that. You simply create your filter code,
19 send it to the kernel via the SO_ATTACH_FILTER option and if your filter
20 code passes the kernel check on it, you then immediately begin filtering
23 You can also detach filters from your socket via the SO_DETACH_FILTER
24 option. This will probably not be used much since when you close a socket
25 that has a filter on it the filter is automagically removed. The other
26 less common case may be adding a different filter on the same socket where
27 you had another filter that is still running: the kernel takes care of
28 removing the old one and placing your new one in its place, assuming your
29 filter has passed the checks, otherwise if it fails the old filter will
30 remain on that socket.
32 SO_LOCK_FILTER option allows to lock the filter attached to a socket. Once
33 set, a filter cannot be removed or changed. This allows one process to
34 setup a socket, attach a filter, lock it then drop privileges and be
35 assured that the filter will be kept until the socket is closed.
37 The biggest user of this construct might be libpcap. Issuing a high-level
38 filter command like `tcpdump -i em1 port 22` passes through the libpcap
39 internal compiler that generates a structure that can eventually be loaded
40 via SO_ATTACH_FILTER to the kernel. `tcpdump -i em1 port 22 -ddd`
41 displays what is being placed into this structure.
43 Although we were only speaking about sockets here, BPF in Linux is used
44 in many more places. There's xt_bpf for netfilter, cls_bpf in the kernel
45 qdisc layer, SECCOMP-BPF (SECure COMPuting [1]), and lots of other places
46 such as team driver, PTP code, etc where BPF is being used.
48 [1] Documentation/userspace-api/seccomp_filter.rst
52 Steven McCanne and Van Jacobson. 1993. The BSD packet filter: a new
53 architecture for user-level packet capture. In Proceedings of the
54 USENIX Winter 1993 Conference Proceedings on USENIX Winter 1993
55 Conference Proceedings (USENIX'93). USENIX Association, Berkeley,
56 CA, USA, 2-2. [http://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.pdf]
61 User space applications include <linux/filter.h> which contains the
62 following relevant structures:
64 struct sock_filter { /* Filter block */
65 __u16 code; /* Actual filter code */
66 __u8 jt; /* Jump true */
67 __u8 jf; /* Jump false */
68 __u32 k; /* Generic multiuse field */
71 Such a structure is assembled as an array of 4-tuples, that contains
72 a code, jt, jf and k value. jt and jf are jump offsets and k a generic
73 value to be used for a provided code.
75 struct sock_fprog { /* Required for SO_ATTACH_FILTER. */
76 unsigned short len; /* Number of filter blocks */
77 struct sock_filter __user *filter;
80 For socket filtering, a pointer to this structure (as shown in
81 follow-up example) is being passed to the kernel through setsockopt(2).
86 #include <sys/socket.h>
87 #include <sys/types.h>
88 #include <arpa/inet.h>
89 #include <linux/if_ether.h>
92 /* From the example above: tcpdump -i em1 port 22 -dd */
93 struct sock_filter code[] = {
94 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x0000000c },
95 { 0x15, 0, 8, 0x000086dd },
96 { 0x30, 0, 0, 0x00000014 },
97 { 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000084 },
98 { 0x15, 1, 0, 0x00000006 },
99 { 0x15, 0, 17, 0x00000011 },
100 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000036 },
101 { 0x15, 14, 0, 0x00000016 },
102 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000038 },
103 { 0x15, 12, 13, 0x00000016 },
104 { 0x15, 0, 12, 0x00000800 },
105 { 0x30, 0, 0, 0x00000017 },
106 { 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000084 },
107 { 0x15, 1, 0, 0x00000006 },
108 { 0x15, 0, 8, 0x00000011 },
109 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000014 },
110 { 0x45, 6, 0, 0x00001fff },
111 { 0xb1, 0, 0, 0x0000000e },
112 { 0x48, 0, 0, 0x0000000e },
113 { 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000016 },
114 { 0x48, 0, 0, 0x00000010 },
115 { 0x15, 0, 1, 0x00000016 },
116 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0x0000ffff },
117 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0x00000000 },
120 struct sock_fprog bpf = {
121 .len = ARRAY_SIZE(code),
125 sock = socket(PF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL));
127 /* ... bail out ... */
129 ret = setsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, &bpf, sizeof(bpf));
131 /* ... bail out ... */
136 The above example code attaches a socket filter for a PF_PACKET socket
137 in order to let all IPv4/IPv6 packets with port 22 pass. The rest will
138 be dropped for this socket.
140 The setsockopt(2) call to SO_DETACH_FILTER doesn't need any arguments
141 and SO_LOCK_FILTER for preventing the filter to be detached, takes an
142 integer value with 0 or 1.
144 Note that socket filters are not restricted to PF_PACKET sockets only,
145 but can also be used on other socket families.
147 Summary of system calls:
149 * setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, &val, sizeof(val));
150 * setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_DETACH_FILTER, &val, sizeof(val));
151 * setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_LOCK_FILTER, &val, sizeof(val));
153 Normally, most use cases for socket filtering on packet sockets will be
154 covered by libpcap in high-level syntax, so as an application developer
155 you should stick to that. libpcap wraps its own layer around all that.
157 Unless i) using/linking to libpcap is not an option, ii) the required BPF
158 filters use Linux extensions that are not supported by libpcap's compiler,
159 iii) a filter might be more complex and not cleanly implementable with
160 libpcap's compiler, or iv) particular filter codes should be optimized
161 differently than libpcap's internal compiler does; then in such cases
162 writing such a filter "by hand" can be of an alternative. For example,
163 xt_bpf and cls_bpf users might have requirements that could result in
164 more complex filter code, or one that cannot be expressed with libpcap
165 (e.g. different return codes for various code paths). Moreover, BPF JIT
166 implementors may wish to manually write test cases and thus need low-level
167 access to BPF code as well.
169 BPF engine and instruction set
170 ------------------------------
172 Under tools/bpf/ there's a small helper tool called bpf_asm which can
173 be used to write low-level filters for example scenarios mentioned in the
174 previous section. Asm-like syntax mentioned here has been implemented in
175 bpf_asm and will be used for further explanations (instead of dealing with
176 less readable opcodes directly, principles are the same). The syntax is
177 closely modelled after Steven McCanne's and Van Jacobson's BPF paper.
179 The BPF architecture consists of the following basic elements:
183 A 32 bit wide accumulator
184 X 32 bit wide X register
185 M[] 16 x 32 bit wide misc registers aka "scratch memory
186 store", addressable from 0 to 15
188 A program, that is translated by bpf_asm into "opcodes" is an array that
189 consists of the following elements (as already mentioned):
191 op:16, jt:8, jf:8, k:32
193 The element op is a 16 bit wide opcode that has a particular instruction
194 encoded. jt and jf are two 8 bit wide jump targets, one for condition
195 "jump if true", the other one "jump if false". Eventually, element k
196 contains a miscellaneous argument that can be interpreted in different
197 ways depending on the given instruction in op.
199 The instruction set consists of load, store, branch, alu, miscellaneous
200 and return instructions that are also represented in bpf_asm syntax. This
201 table lists all bpf_asm instructions available resp. what their underlying
202 opcodes as defined in linux/filter.h stand for:
204 Instruction Addressing mode Description
206 ld 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 Load word into A
207 ldi 4 Load word into A
208 ldh 1, 2 Load half-word into A
209 ldb 1, 2 Load byte into A
210 ldx 3, 4, 5, 10 Load word into X
211 ldxi 4 Load word into X
212 ldxb 5 Load byte into X
214 st 3 Store A into M[]
215 stx 3 Store X into M[]
219 jeq 7, 8 Jump on A == k
220 jneq 8 Jump on A != k
224 jgt 7, 8 Jump on A > k
225 jge 7, 8 Jump on A >= k
226 jset 7, 8 Jump on A & k
245 The next table shows addressing formats from the 2nd column:
247 Addressing mode Syntax Description
250 1 [k] BHW at byte offset k in the packet
251 2 [x + k] BHW at the offset X + k in the packet
252 3 M[k] Word at offset k in M[]
253 4 #k Literal value stored in k
254 5 4*([k]&0xf) Lower nibble * 4 at byte offset k in the packet
256 7 #k,Lt,Lf Jump to Lt if true, otherwise jump to Lf
257 8 #k,Lt Jump to Lt if predicate is true
259 10 extension BPF extension
261 The Linux kernel also has a couple of BPF extensions that are used along
262 with the class of load instructions by "overloading" the k argument with
263 a negative offset + a particular extension offset. The result of such BPF
264 extensions are loaded into A.
266 Possible BPF extensions are shown in the following table:
268 Extension Description
273 poff Payload start offset
274 ifidx skb->dev->ifindex
275 nla Netlink attribute of type X with offset A
276 nlan Nested Netlink attribute of type X with offset A
278 queue skb->queue_mapping
279 hatype skb->dev->type
281 cpu raw_smp_processor_id()
282 vlan_tci skb_vlan_tag_get(skb)
283 vlan_avail skb_vlan_tag_present(skb)
284 vlan_tpid skb->vlan_proto
287 These extensions can also be prefixed with '#'.
288 Examples for low-level BPF:
306 ** (Accelerated) VLAN w/ id 10:
313 ** icmp random packet sampling, 1 in 4
318 # get a random uint32 number
325 ** SECCOMP filter example:
327 ld [4] /* offsetof(struct seccomp_data, arch) */
328 jne #0xc000003e, bad /* AUDIT_ARCH_X86_64 */
329 ld [0] /* offsetof(struct seccomp_data, nr) */
330 jeq #15, good /* __NR_rt_sigreturn */
331 jeq #231, good /* __NR_exit_group */
332 jeq #60, good /* __NR_exit */
333 jeq #0, good /* __NR_read */
334 jeq #1, good /* __NR_write */
335 jeq #5, good /* __NR_fstat */
336 jeq #9, good /* __NR_mmap */
337 jeq #14, good /* __NR_rt_sigprocmask */
338 jeq #13, good /* __NR_rt_sigaction */
339 jeq #35, good /* __NR_nanosleep */
340 bad: ret #0 /* SECCOMP_RET_KILL_THREAD */
341 good: ret #0x7fff0000 /* SECCOMP_RET_ALLOW */
343 The above example code can be placed into a file (here called "foo"), and
344 then be passed to the bpf_asm tool for generating opcodes, output that xt_bpf
345 and cls_bpf understands and can directly be loaded with. Example with above
349 4,40 0 0 12,21 0 1 2054,6 0 0 4294967295,6 0 0 0,
351 In copy and paste C-like output:
354 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x0000000c },
355 { 0x15, 0, 1, 0x00000806 },
356 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0xffffffff },
357 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0000000000 },
359 In particular, as usage with xt_bpf or cls_bpf can result in more complex BPF
360 filters that might not be obvious at first, it's good to test filters before
361 attaching to a live system. For that purpose, there's a small tool called
362 bpf_dbg under tools/bpf/ in the kernel source directory. This debugger allows
363 for testing BPF filters against given pcap files, single stepping through the
364 BPF code on the pcap's packets and to do BPF machine register dumps.
366 Starting bpf_dbg is trivial and just requires issuing:
370 In case input and output do not equal stdin/stdout, bpf_dbg takes an
371 alternative stdin source as a first argument, and an alternative stdout
372 sink as a second one, e.g. `./bpf_dbg test_in.txt test_out.txt`.
374 Other than that, a particular libreadline configuration can be set via
375 file "~/.bpf_dbg_init" and the command history is stored in the file
376 "~/.bpf_dbg_history".
378 Interaction in bpf_dbg happens through a shell that also has auto-completion
379 support (follow-up example commands starting with '>' denote bpf_dbg shell).
380 The usual workflow would be to ...
382 > load bpf 6,40 0 0 12,21 0 3 2048,48 0 0 23,21 0 1 1,6 0 0 65535,6 0 0 0
383 Loads a BPF filter from standard output of bpf_asm, or transformed via
384 e.g. `tcpdump -iem1 -ddd port 22 | tr '\n' ','`. Note that for JIT
385 debugging (next section), this command creates a temporary socket and
386 loads the BPF code into the kernel. Thus, this will also be useful for
390 Loads standard tcpdump pcap file.
394 Runs through all packets from a pcap to account how many passes and fails
395 the filter will generate. A limit of packets to traverse can be given.
399 l1: jeq #0x800, l2, l5
404 Prints out BPF code disassembly.
407 /* { op, jt, jf, k }, */
408 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x0000000c },
409 { 0x15, 0, 3, 0x00000800 },
410 { 0x30, 0, 0, 0x00000017 },
411 { 0x15, 0, 1, 0x00000001 },
412 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0x0000ffff },
413 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0000000000 },
414 Prints out C-style BPF code dump.
417 breakpoint at: l0: ldh [12]
419 breakpoint at: l1: jeq #0x800, l2, l5
421 Sets breakpoints at particular BPF instructions. Issuing a `run` command
422 will walk through the pcap file continuing from the current packet and
423 break when a breakpoint is being hit (another `run` will continue from
424 the currently active breakpoint executing next instructions):
428 pc: [0] <-- program counter
429 code: [40] jt[0] jf[0] k[12] <-- plain BPF code of current instruction
430 curr: l0: ldh [12] <-- disassembly of current instruction
431 A: [00000000][0] <-- content of A (hex, decimal)
432 X: [00000000][0] <-- content of X (hex, decimal)
433 M[0,15]: [00000000][0] <-- folded content of M (hex, decimal)
434 -- packet dump -- <-- Current packet from pcap (hex)
436 0: 00 19 cb 55 55 a4 00 14 a4 43 78 69 08 06 00 01
437 16: 08 00 06 04 00 01 00 14 a4 43 78 69 0a 3b 01 26
438 32: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0a 3b 01 01
444 Prints currently set breakpoints.
447 Performs single stepping through the BPF program from the current pc
448 offset. Thus, on each step invocation, above register dump is issued.
449 This can go forwards and backwards in time, a plain `step` will break
450 on the next BPF instruction, thus +1. (No `run` needs to be issued here.)
453 Selects a given packet from the pcap file to continue from. Thus, on
454 the next `run` or `step`, the BPF program is being evaluated against
455 the user pre-selected packet. Numbering starts just as in Wireshark
465 The Linux kernel has a built-in BPF JIT compiler for x86_64, SPARC, PowerPC,
466 ARM, ARM64, MIPS and s390 and can be enabled through CONFIG_BPF_JIT. The JIT
467 compiler is transparently invoked for each attached filter from user space
468 or for internal kernel users if it has been previously enabled by root:
470 echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable
472 For JIT developers, doing audits etc, each compile run can output the generated
473 opcode image into the kernel log via:
475 echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable
477 Example output from dmesg:
479 [ 3389.935842] flen=6 proglen=70 pass=3 image=ffffffffa0069c8f
480 [ 3389.935847] JIT code: 00000000: 55 48 89 e5 48 83 ec 60 48 89 5d f8 44 8b 4f 68
481 [ 3389.935849] JIT code: 00000010: 44 2b 4f 6c 4c 8b 87 d8 00 00 00 be 0c 00 00 00
482 [ 3389.935850] JIT code: 00000020: e8 1d 94 ff e0 3d 00 08 00 00 75 16 be 17 00 00
483 [ 3389.935851] JIT code: 00000030: 00 e8 28 94 ff e0 83 f8 01 75 07 b8 ff ff 00 00
484 [ 3389.935852] JIT code: 00000040: eb 02 31 c0 c9 c3
486 When CONFIG_BPF_JIT_ALWAYS_ON is enabled, bpf_jit_enable is permanently set to 1 and
487 setting any other value than that will return in failure. This is even the case for
488 setting bpf_jit_enable to 2, since dumping the final JIT image into the kernel log
489 is discouraged and introspection through bpftool (under tools/bpf/bpftool/) is the
490 generally recommended approach instead.
492 In the kernel source tree under tools/bpf/, there's bpf_jit_disasm for
493 generating disassembly out of the kernel log's hexdump:
496 70 bytes emitted from JIT compiler (pass:3, flen:6)
497 ffffffffa0069c8f + <x>:
501 8: mov %rbx,-0x8(%rbp)
502 c: mov 0x68(%rdi),%r9d
503 10: sub 0x6c(%rdi),%r9d
504 14: mov 0xd8(%rdi),%r8
506 20: callq 0xffffffffe0ff9442
508 2a: jne 0x0000000000000042
510 31: callq 0xffffffffe0ff945e
512 39: jne 0x0000000000000042
514 40: jmp 0x0000000000000044
519 Issuing option `-o` will "annotate" opcodes to resulting assembler
520 instructions, which can be very useful for JIT developers:
522 # ./bpf_jit_disasm -o
523 70 bytes emitted from JIT compiler (pass:3, flen:6)
524 ffffffffa0069c8f + <x>:
531 8: mov %rbx,-0x8(%rbp)
533 c: mov 0x68(%rdi),%r9d
535 10: sub 0x6c(%rdi),%r9d
537 14: mov 0xd8(%rdi),%r8
541 20: callq 0xffffffffe0ff9442
545 2a: jne 0x0000000000000042
549 31: callq 0xffffffffe0ff945e
553 39: jne 0x0000000000000042
557 40: jmp 0x0000000000000044
566 For BPF JIT developers, bpf_jit_disasm, bpf_asm and bpf_dbg provides a useful
567 toolchain for developing and testing the kernel's JIT compiler.
571 Internally, for the kernel interpreter, a different instruction set
572 format with similar underlying principles from BPF described in previous
573 paragraphs is being used. However, the instruction set format is modelled
574 closer to the underlying architecture to mimic native instruction sets, so
575 that a better performance can be achieved (more details later). This new
576 ISA is called 'eBPF' or 'internal BPF' interchangeably. (Note: eBPF which
577 originates from [e]xtended BPF is not the same as BPF extensions! While
578 eBPF is an ISA, BPF extensions date back to classic BPF's 'overloading'
579 of BPF_LD | BPF_{B,H,W} | BPF_ABS instruction.)
581 It is designed to be JITed with one to one mapping, which can also open up
582 the possibility for GCC/LLVM compilers to generate optimized eBPF code through
583 an eBPF backend that performs almost as fast as natively compiled code.
585 The new instruction set was originally designed with the possible goal in
586 mind to write programs in "restricted C" and compile into eBPF with a optional
587 GCC/LLVM backend, so that it can just-in-time map to modern 64-bit CPUs with
588 minimal performance overhead over two steps, that is, C -> eBPF -> native code.
590 Currently, the new format is being used for running user BPF programs, which
591 includes seccomp BPF, classic socket filters, cls_bpf traffic classifier,
592 team driver's classifier for its load-balancing mode, netfilter's xt_bpf
593 extension, PTP dissector/classifier, and much more. They are all internally
594 converted by the kernel into the new instruction set representation and run
595 in the eBPF interpreter. For in-kernel handlers, this all works transparently
596 by using bpf_prog_create() for setting up the filter, resp.
597 bpf_prog_destroy() for destroying it. The macro
598 BPF_PROG_RUN(filter, ctx) transparently invokes eBPF interpreter or JITed
599 code to run the filter. 'filter' is a pointer to struct bpf_prog that we
600 got from bpf_prog_create(), and 'ctx' the given context (e.g.
601 skb pointer). All constraints and restrictions from bpf_check_classic() apply
602 before a conversion to the new layout is being done behind the scenes!
604 Currently, the classic BPF format is being used for JITing on most 32-bit
605 architectures, whereas x86-64, aarch64, s390x, powerpc64, sparc64, arm32 perform
606 JIT compilation from eBPF instruction set.
608 Some core changes of the new internal format:
610 - Number of registers increase from 2 to 10:
612 The old format had two registers A and X, and a hidden frame pointer. The
613 new layout extends this to be 10 internal registers and a read-only frame
614 pointer. Since 64-bit CPUs are passing arguments to functions via registers
615 the number of args from eBPF program to in-kernel function is restricted
616 to 5 and one register is used to accept return value from an in-kernel
617 function. Natively, x86_64 passes first 6 arguments in registers, aarch64/
618 sparcv9/mips64 have 7 - 8 registers for arguments; x86_64 has 6 callee saved
619 registers, and aarch64/sparcv9/mips64 have 11 or more callee saved registers.
621 Therefore, eBPF calling convention is defined as:
623 * R0 - return value from in-kernel function, and exit value for eBPF program
624 * R1 - R5 - arguments from eBPF program to in-kernel function
625 * R6 - R9 - callee saved registers that in-kernel function will preserve
626 * R10 - read-only frame pointer to access stack
628 Thus, all eBPF registers map one to one to HW registers on x86_64, aarch64,
629 etc, and eBPF calling convention maps directly to ABIs used by the kernel on
630 64-bit architectures.
632 On 32-bit architectures JIT may map programs that use only 32-bit arithmetic
633 and may let more complex programs to be interpreted.
635 R0 - R5 are scratch registers and eBPF program needs spill/fill them if
636 necessary across calls. Note that there is only one eBPF program (== one
637 eBPF main routine) and it cannot call other eBPF functions, it can only
638 call predefined in-kernel functions, though.
640 - Register width increases from 32-bit to 64-bit:
642 Still, the semantics of the original 32-bit ALU operations are preserved
643 via 32-bit subregisters. All eBPF registers are 64-bit with 32-bit lower
644 subregisters that zero-extend into 64-bit if they are being written to.
645 That behavior maps directly to x86_64 and arm64 subregister definition, but
646 makes other JITs more difficult.
648 32-bit architectures run 64-bit internal BPF programs via interpreter.
649 Their JITs may convert BPF programs that only use 32-bit subregisters into
650 native instruction set and let the rest being interpreted.
652 Operation is 64-bit, because on 64-bit architectures, pointers are also
653 64-bit wide, and we want to pass 64-bit values in/out of kernel functions,
654 so 32-bit eBPF registers would otherwise require to define register-pair
655 ABI, thus, there won't be able to use a direct eBPF register to HW register
656 mapping and JIT would need to do combine/split/move operations for every
657 register in and out of the function, which is complex, bug prone and slow.
658 Another reason is the use of atomic 64-bit counters.
660 - Conditional jt/jf targets replaced with jt/fall-through:
662 While the original design has constructs such as "if (cond) jump_true;
663 else jump_false;", they are being replaced into alternative constructs like
664 "if (cond) jump_true; /* else fall-through */".
666 - Introduces bpf_call insn and register passing convention for zero overhead
667 calls from/to other kernel functions:
669 Before an in-kernel function call, the internal BPF program needs to
670 place function arguments into R1 to R5 registers to satisfy calling
671 convention, then the interpreter will take them from registers and pass
672 to in-kernel function. If R1 - R5 registers are mapped to CPU registers
673 that are used for argument passing on given architecture, the JIT compiler
674 doesn't need to emit extra moves. Function arguments will be in the correct
675 registers and BPF_CALL instruction will be JITed as single 'call' HW
676 instruction. This calling convention was picked to cover common call
677 situations without performance penalty.
679 After an in-kernel function call, R1 - R5 are reset to unreadable and R0 has
680 a return value of the function. Since R6 - R9 are callee saved, their state
681 is preserved across the call.
683 For example, consider three C functions:
685 u64 f1() { return (*_f2)(1); }
686 u64 f2(u64 a) { return f3(a + 1, a); }
687 u64 f3(u64 a, u64 b) { return a - b; }
689 GCC can compile f1, f3 into x86_64:
700 Function f2 in eBPF may look like:
708 If f2 is JITed and the pointer stored to '_f2'. The calls f1 -> f2 -> f3 and
709 returns will be seamless. Without JIT, __bpf_prog_run() interpreter needs to
710 be used to call into f2.
712 For practical reasons all eBPF programs have only one argument 'ctx' which is
713 already placed into R1 (e.g. on __bpf_prog_run() startup) and the programs
714 can call kernel functions with up to 5 arguments. Calls with 6 or more arguments
715 are currently not supported, but these restrictions can be lifted if necessary
718 On 64-bit architectures all register map to HW registers one to one. For
719 example, x86_64 JIT compiler can map them as ...
733 ... since x86_64 ABI mandates rdi, rsi, rdx, rcx, r8, r9 for argument passing
734 and rbx, r12 - r15 are callee saved.
736 Then the following internal BPF pseudo-program:
738 bpf_mov R6, R1 /* save ctx */
744 bpf_mov R7, R0 /* save foo() return value */
745 bpf_mov R1, R6 /* restore ctx for next call */
754 After JIT to x86_64 may look like:
759 mov %rbx,-0x228(%rbp)
760 mov %r13,-0x220(%rbp)
775 mov -0x228(%rbp),%rbx
776 mov -0x220(%rbp),%r13
780 Which is in this example equivalent in C to:
782 u64 bpf_filter(u64 ctx)
784 return foo(ctx, 2, 3, 4, 5) + bar(ctx, 6, 7, 8, 9);
787 In-kernel functions foo() and bar() with prototype: u64 (*)(u64 arg1, u64
788 arg2, u64 arg3, u64 arg4, u64 arg5); will receive arguments in proper
789 registers and place their return value into '%rax' which is R0 in eBPF.
790 Prologue and epilogue are emitted by JIT and are implicit in the
791 interpreter. R0-R5 are scratch registers, so eBPF program needs to preserve
792 them across the calls as defined by calling convention.
794 For example the following program is invalid:
801 After the call the registers R1-R5 contain junk values and cannot be read.
802 An in-kernel eBPF verifier is used to validate internal BPF programs.
804 Also in the new design, eBPF is limited to 4096 insns, which means that any
805 program will terminate quickly and will only call a fixed number of kernel
806 functions. Original BPF and the new format are two operand instructions,
807 which helps to do one-to-one mapping between eBPF insn and x86 insn during JIT.
809 The input context pointer for invoking the interpreter function is generic,
810 its content is defined by a specific use case. For seccomp register R1 points
811 to seccomp_data, for converted BPF filters R1 points to a skb.
813 A program, that is translated internally consists of the following elements:
815 op:16, jt:8, jf:8, k:32 ==> op:8, dst_reg:4, src_reg:4, off:16, imm:32
817 So far 87 internal BPF instructions were implemented. 8-bit 'op' opcode field
818 has room for new instructions. Some of them may use 16/24/32 byte encoding. New
819 instructions must be multiple of 8 bytes to preserve backward compatibility.
821 Internal BPF is a general purpose RISC instruction set. Not every register and
822 every instruction are used during translation from original BPF to new format.
823 For example, socket filters are not using 'exclusive add' instruction, but
824 tracing filters may do to maintain counters of events, for example. Register R9
825 is not used by socket filters either, but more complex filters may be running
826 out of registers and would have to resort to spill/fill to stack.
828 Internal BPF can used as generic assembler for last step performance
829 optimizations, socket filters and seccomp are using it as assembler. Tracing
830 filters may use it as assembler to generate code from kernel. In kernel usage
831 may not be bounded by security considerations, since generated internal BPF code
832 may be optimizing internal code path and not being exposed to the user space.
833 Safety of internal BPF can come from a verifier (TBD). In such use cases as
834 described, it may be used as safe instruction set.
836 Just like the original BPF, the new format runs within a controlled environment,
837 is deterministic and the kernel can easily prove that. The safety of the program
838 can be determined in two steps: first step does depth-first-search to disallow
839 loops and other CFG validation; second step starts from the first insn and
840 descends all possible paths. It simulates execution of every insn and observes
841 the state change of registers and stack.
846 eBPF is reusing most of the opcode encoding from classic to simplify conversion
847 of classic BPF to eBPF. For arithmetic and jump instructions the 8-bit 'code'
848 field is divided into three parts:
850 +----------------+--------+--------------------+
851 | 4 bits | 1 bit | 3 bits |
852 | operation code | source | instruction class |
853 +----------------+--------+--------------------+
856 Three LSB bits store instruction class which is one of:
858 Classic BPF classes: eBPF classes:
860 BPF_LD 0x00 BPF_LD 0x00
861 BPF_LDX 0x01 BPF_LDX 0x01
862 BPF_ST 0x02 BPF_ST 0x02
863 BPF_STX 0x03 BPF_STX 0x03
864 BPF_ALU 0x04 BPF_ALU 0x04
865 BPF_JMP 0x05 BPF_JMP 0x05
866 BPF_RET 0x06 [ class 6 unused, for future if needed ]
867 BPF_MISC 0x07 BPF_ALU64 0x07
869 When BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_ALU or BPF_JMP, 4th bit encodes source operand ...
874 * in classic BPF, this means:
876 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_X - use register X as source operand
877 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_K - use 32-bit immediate as source operand
879 * in eBPF, this means:
881 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_X - use 'src_reg' register as source operand
882 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_K - use 32-bit immediate as source operand
884 ... and four MSB bits store operation code.
886 If BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_ALU or BPF_ALU64 [ in eBPF ], BPF_OP(code) is one of:
899 BPF_MOV 0xb0 /* eBPF only: mov reg to reg */
900 BPF_ARSH 0xc0 /* eBPF only: sign extending shift right */
901 BPF_END 0xd0 /* eBPF only: endianness conversion */
903 If BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_JMP, BPF_OP(code) is one of:
910 BPF_JNE 0x50 /* eBPF only: jump != */
911 BPF_JSGT 0x60 /* eBPF only: signed '>' */
912 BPF_JSGE 0x70 /* eBPF only: signed '>=' */
913 BPF_CALL 0x80 /* eBPF only: function call */
914 BPF_EXIT 0x90 /* eBPF only: function return */
915 BPF_JLT 0xa0 /* eBPF only: unsigned '<' */
916 BPF_JLE 0xb0 /* eBPF only: unsigned '<=' */
917 BPF_JSLT 0xc0 /* eBPF only: signed '<' */
918 BPF_JSLE 0xd0 /* eBPF only: signed '<=' */
920 So BPF_ADD | BPF_X | BPF_ALU means 32-bit addition in both classic BPF
921 and eBPF. There are only two registers in classic BPF, so it means A += X.
922 In eBPF it means dst_reg = (u32) dst_reg + (u32) src_reg; similarly,
923 BPF_XOR | BPF_K | BPF_ALU means A ^= imm32 in classic BPF and analogous
924 src_reg = (u32) src_reg ^ (u32) imm32 in eBPF.
926 Classic BPF is using BPF_MISC class to represent A = X and X = A moves.
927 eBPF is using BPF_MOV | BPF_X | BPF_ALU code instead. Since there are no
928 BPF_MISC operations in eBPF, the class 7 is used as BPF_ALU64 to mean
929 exactly the same operations as BPF_ALU, but with 64-bit wide operands
930 instead. So BPF_ADD | BPF_X | BPF_ALU64 means 64-bit addition, i.e.:
931 dst_reg = dst_reg + src_reg
933 Classic BPF wastes the whole BPF_RET class to represent a single 'ret'
934 operation. Classic BPF_RET | BPF_K means copy imm32 into return register
935 and perform function exit. eBPF is modeled to match CPU, so BPF_JMP | BPF_EXIT
936 in eBPF means function exit only. The eBPF program needs to store return
937 value into register R0 before doing a BPF_EXIT. Class 6 in eBPF is currently
938 unused and reserved for future use.
940 For load and store instructions the 8-bit 'code' field is divided as:
942 +--------+--------+-------------------+
943 | 3 bits | 2 bits | 3 bits |
944 | mode | size | instruction class |
945 +--------+--------+-------------------+
948 Size modifier is one of ...
950 BPF_W 0x00 /* word */
951 BPF_H 0x08 /* half word */
952 BPF_B 0x10 /* byte */
953 BPF_DW 0x18 /* eBPF only, double word */
955 ... which encodes size of load/store operation:
960 DW - 8 byte (eBPF only)
962 Mode modifier is one of:
964 BPF_IMM 0x00 /* used for 32-bit mov in classic BPF and 64-bit in eBPF */
968 BPF_LEN 0x80 /* classic BPF only, reserved in eBPF */
969 BPF_MSH 0xa0 /* classic BPF only, reserved in eBPF */
970 BPF_XADD 0xc0 /* eBPF only, exclusive add */
972 eBPF has two non-generic instructions: (BPF_ABS | <size> | BPF_LD) and
973 (BPF_IND | <size> | BPF_LD) which are used to access packet data.
975 They had to be carried over from classic to have strong performance of
976 socket filters running in eBPF interpreter. These instructions can only
977 be used when interpreter context is a pointer to 'struct sk_buff' and
978 have seven implicit operands. Register R6 is an implicit input that must
979 contain pointer to sk_buff. Register R0 is an implicit output which contains
980 the data fetched from the packet. Registers R1-R5 are scratch registers
981 and must not be used to store the data across BPF_ABS | BPF_LD or
982 BPF_IND | BPF_LD instructions.
984 These instructions have implicit program exit condition as well. When
985 eBPF program is trying to access the data beyond the packet boundary,
986 the interpreter will abort the execution of the program. JIT compilers
987 therefore must preserve this property. src_reg and imm32 fields are
988 explicit inputs to these instructions.
992 BPF_IND | BPF_W | BPF_LD means:
994 R0 = ntohl(*(u32 *) (((struct sk_buff *) R6)->data + src_reg + imm32))
995 and R1 - R5 were scratched.
997 Unlike classic BPF instruction set, eBPF has generic load/store operations:
999 BPF_MEM | <size> | BPF_STX: *(size *) (dst_reg + off) = src_reg
1000 BPF_MEM | <size> | BPF_ST: *(size *) (dst_reg + off) = imm32
1001 BPF_MEM | <size> | BPF_LDX: dst_reg = *(size *) (src_reg + off)
1002 BPF_XADD | BPF_W | BPF_STX: lock xadd *(u32 *)(dst_reg + off16) += src_reg
1003 BPF_XADD | BPF_DW | BPF_STX: lock xadd *(u64 *)(dst_reg + off16) += src_reg
1005 Where size is one of: BPF_B or BPF_H or BPF_W or BPF_DW. Note that 1 and
1006 2 byte atomic increments are not supported.
1008 eBPF has one 16-byte instruction: BPF_LD | BPF_DW | BPF_IMM which consists
1009 of two consecutive 'struct bpf_insn' 8-byte blocks and interpreted as single
1010 instruction that loads 64-bit immediate value into a dst_reg.
1011 Classic BPF has similar instruction: BPF_LD | BPF_W | BPF_IMM which loads
1012 32-bit immediate value into a register.
1016 The safety of the eBPF program is determined in two steps.
1018 First step does DAG check to disallow loops and other CFG validation.
1019 In particular it will detect programs that have unreachable instructions.
1020 (though classic BPF checker allows them)
1022 Second step starts from the first insn and descends all possible paths.
1023 It simulates execution of every insn and observes the state change of
1024 registers and stack.
1026 At the start of the program the register R1 contains a pointer to context
1027 and has type PTR_TO_CTX.
1028 If verifier sees an insn that does R2=R1, then R2 has now type
1029 PTR_TO_CTX as well and can be used on the right hand side of expression.
1030 If R1=PTR_TO_CTX and insn is R2=R1+R1, then R2=SCALAR_VALUE,
1031 since addition of two valid pointers makes invalid pointer.
1032 (In 'secure' mode verifier will reject any type of pointer arithmetic to make
1033 sure that kernel addresses don't leak to unprivileged users)
1035 If register was never written to, it's not readable:
1038 will be rejected, since R2 is unreadable at the start of the program.
1040 After kernel function call, R1-R5 are reset to unreadable and
1041 R0 has a return type of the function.
1043 Since R6-R9 are callee saved, their state is preserved across the call.
1048 is a correct program. If there was R1 instead of R6, it would have
1051 load/store instructions are allowed only with registers of valid types, which
1052 are PTR_TO_CTX, PTR_TO_MAP, PTR_TO_STACK. They are bounds and alignment checked.
1056 bpf_xadd *(u32 *)(R1 + 3) += R2
1058 will be rejected, since R1 doesn't have a valid pointer type at the time of
1059 execution of instruction bpf_xadd.
1061 At the start R1 type is PTR_TO_CTX (a pointer to generic 'struct bpf_context')
1062 A callback is used to customize verifier to restrict eBPF program access to only
1063 certain fields within ctx structure with specified size and alignment.
1065 For example, the following insn:
1066 bpf_ld R0 = *(u32 *)(R6 + 8)
1067 intends to load a word from address R6 + 8 and store it into R0
1068 If R6=PTR_TO_CTX, via is_valid_access() callback the verifier will know
1069 that offset 8 of size 4 bytes can be accessed for reading, otherwise
1070 the verifier will reject the program.
1071 If R6=PTR_TO_STACK, then access should be aligned and be within
1072 stack bounds, which are [-MAX_BPF_STACK, 0). In this example offset is 8,
1073 so it will fail verification, since it's out of bounds.
1075 The verifier will allow eBPF program to read data from stack only after
1077 Classic BPF verifier does similar check with M[0-15] memory slots.
1079 bpf_ld R0 = *(u32 *)(R10 - 4)
1082 Though R10 is correct read-only register and has type PTR_TO_STACK
1083 and R10 - 4 is within stack bounds, there were no stores into that location.
1085 Pointer register spill/fill is tracked as well, since four (R6-R9)
1086 callee saved registers may not be enough for some programs.
1088 Allowed function calls are customized with bpf_verifier_ops->get_func_proto()
1089 The eBPF verifier will check that registers match argument constraints.
1090 After the call register R0 will be set to return type of the function.
1092 Function calls is a main mechanism to extend functionality of eBPF programs.
1093 Socket filters may let programs to call one set of functions, whereas tracing
1094 filters may allow completely different set.
1096 If a function made accessible to eBPF program, it needs to be thought through
1097 from safety point of view. The verifier will guarantee that the function is
1098 called with valid arguments.
1100 seccomp vs socket filters have different security restrictions for classic BPF.
1101 Seccomp solves this by two stage verifier: classic BPF verifier is followed
1102 by seccomp verifier. In case of eBPF one configurable verifier is shared for
1105 See details of eBPF verifier in kernel/bpf/verifier.c
1107 Register value tracking
1108 -----------------------
1109 In order to determine the safety of an eBPF program, the verifier must track
1110 the range of possible values in each register and also in each stack slot.
1111 This is done with 'struct bpf_reg_state', defined in include/linux/
1112 bpf_verifier.h, which unifies tracking of scalar and pointer values. Each
1113 register state has a type, which is either NOT_INIT (the register has not been
1114 written to), SCALAR_VALUE (some value which is not usable as a pointer), or a
1115 pointer type. The types of pointers describe their base, as follows:
1116 PTR_TO_CTX Pointer to bpf_context.
1117 CONST_PTR_TO_MAP Pointer to struct bpf_map. "Const" because arithmetic
1118 on these pointers is forbidden.
1119 PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE Pointer to the value stored in a map element.
1120 PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE_OR_NULL
1121 Either a pointer to a map value, or NULL; map accesses
1122 (see section 'eBPF maps', below) return this type,
1123 which becomes a PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE when checked != NULL.
1124 Arithmetic on these pointers is forbidden.
1125 PTR_TO_STACK Frame pointer.
1126 PTR_TO_PACKET skb->data.
1127 PTR_TO_PACKET_END skb->data + headlen; arithmetic forbidden.
1128 However, a pointer may be offset from this base (as a result of pointer
1129 arithmetic), and this is tracked in two parts: the 'fixed offset' and 'variable
1130 offset'. The former is used when an exactly-known value (e.g. an immediate
1131 operand) is added to a pointer, while the latter is used for values which are
1132 not exactly known. The variable offset is also used in SCALAR_VALUEs, to track
1133 the range of possible values in the register.
1134 The verifier's knowledge about the variable offset consists of:
1135 * minimum and maximum values as unsigned
1136 * minimum and maximum values as signed
1137 * knowledge of the values of individual bits, in the form of a 'tnum': a u64
1138 'mask' and a u64 'value'. 1s in the mask represent bits whose value is unknown;
1139 1s in the value represent bits known to be 1. Bits known to be 0 have 0 in both
1140 mask and value; no bit should ever be 1 in both. For example, if a byte is read
1141 into a register from memory, the register's top 56 bits are known zero, while
1142 the low 8 are unknown - which is represented as the tnum (0x0; 0xff). If we
1143 then OR this with 0x40, we get (0x40; 0xbf), then if we add 1 we get (0x0;
1144 0x1ff), because of potential carries.
1146 Besides arithmetic, the register state can also be updated by conditional
1147 branches. For instance, if a SCALAR_VALUE is compared > 8, in the 'true' branch
1148 it will have a umin_value (unsigned minimum value) of 9, whereas in the 'false'
1149 branch it will have a umax_value of 8. A signed compare (with BPF_JSGT or
1150 BPF_JSGE) would instead update the signed minimum/maximum values. Information
1151 from the signed and unsigned bounds can be combined; for instance if a value is
1152 first tested < 8 and then tested s> 4, the verifier will conclude that the value
1153 is also > 4 and s< 8, since the bounds prevent crossing the sign boundary.
1155 PTR_TO_PACKETs with a variable offset part have an 'id', which is common to all
1156 pointers sharing that same variable offset. This is important for packet range
1157 checks: after adding a variable to a packet pointer register A, if you then copy
1158 it to another register B and then add a constant 4 to A, both registers will
1159 share the same 'id' but the A will have a fixed offset of +4. Then if A is
1160 bounds-checked and found to be less than a PTR_TO_PACKET_END, the register B is
1161 now known to have a safe range of at least 4 bytes. See 'Direct packet access',
1162 below, for more on PTR_TO_PACKET ranges.
1164 The 'id' field is also used on PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE_OR_NULL, common to all copies of
1165 the pointer returned from a map lookup. This means that when one copy is
1166 checked and found to be non-NULL, all copies can become PTR_TO_MAP_VALUEs.
1167 As well as range-checking, the tracked information is also used for enforcing
1168 alignment of pointer accesses. For instance, on most systems the packet pointer
1169 is 2 bytes after a 4-byte alignment. If a program adds 14 bytes to that to jump
1170 over the Ethernet header, then reads IHL and addes (IHL * 4), the resulting
1171 pointer will have a variable offset known to be 4n+2 for some n, so adding the 2
1172 bytes (NET_IP_ALIGN) gives a 4-byte alignment and so word-sized accesses through
1173 that pointer are safe.
1175 Direct packet access
1176 --------------------
1177 In cls_bpf and act_bpf programs the verifier allows direct access to the packet
1178 data via skb->data and skb->data_end pointers.
1180 1: r4 = *(u32 *)(r1 +80) /* load skb->data_end */
1181 2: r3 = *(u32 *)(r1 +76) /* load skb->data */
1184 5: if r5 > r4 goto pc+16
1185 R1=ctx R3=pkt(id=0,off=0,r=14) R4=pkt_end R5=pkt(id=0,off=14,r=14) R10=fp
1186 6: r0 = *(u16 *)(r3 +12) /* access 12 and 13 bytes of the packet */
1188 this 2byte load from the packet is safe to do, since the program author
1189 did check 'if (skb->data + 14 > skb->data_end) goto err' at insn #5 which
1190 means that in the fall-through case the register R3 (which points to skb->data)
1191 has at least 14 directly accessible bytes. The verifier marks it
1192 as R3=pkt(id=0,off=0,r=14).
1193 id=0 means that no additional variables were added to the register.
1194 off=0 means that no additional constants were added.
1195 r=14 is the range of safe access which means that bytes [R3, R3 + 14) are ok.
1196 Note that R5 is marked as R5=pkt(id=0,off=14,r=14). It also points
1197 to the packet data, but constant 14 was added to the register, so
1198 it now points to 'skb->data + 14' and accessible range is [R5, R5 + 14 - 14)
1199 which is zero bytes.
1201 More complex packet access may look like:
1202 R0=inv1 R1=ctx R3=pkt(id=0,off=0,r=14) R4=pkt_end R5=pkt(id=0,off=14,r=14) R10=fp
1203 6: r0 = *(u8 *)(r3 +7) /* load 7th byte from the packet */
1204 7: r4 = *(u8 *)(r3 +12)
1206 9: r3 = *(u32 *)(r1 +76) /* load skb->data */
1214 17: r1 = *(u32 *)(r1 +80) /* load skb->data_end */
1215 18: if r2 > r1 goto pc+2
1216 R0=inv(id=0,umax_value=255,var_off=(0x0; 0xff)) R1=pkt_end R2=pkt(id=2,off=8,r=8) R3=pkt(id=2,off=0,r=8) R4=inv(id=0,umax_value=3570,var_off=(0x0; 0xfffe)) R5=pkt(id=0,off=14,r=14) R10=fp
1217 19: r1 = *(u8 *)(r3 +4)
1218 The state of the register R3 is R3=pkt(id=2,off=0,r=8)
1219 id=2 means that two 'r3 += rX' instructions were seen, so r3 points to some
1220 offset within a packet and since the program author did
1221 'if (r3 + 8 > r1) goto err' at insn #18, the safe range is [R3, R3 + 8).
1222 The verifier only allows 'add'/'sub' operations on packet registers. Any other
1223 operation will set the register state to 'SCALAR_VALUE' and it won't be
1224 available for direct packet access.
1225 Operation 'r3 += rX' may overflow and become less than original skb->data,
1226 therefore the verifier has to prevent that. So when it sees 'r3 += rX'
1227 instruction and rX is more than 16-bit value, any subsequent bounds-check of r3
1228 against skb->data_end will not give us 'range' information, so attempts to read
1229 through the pointer will give "invalid access to packet" error.
1230 Ex. after insn 'r4 = *(u8 *)(r3 +12)' (insn #7 above) the state of r4 is
1231 R4=inv(id=0,umax_value=255,var_off=(0x0; 0xff)) which means that upper 56 bits
1232 of the register are guaranteed to be zero, and nothing is known about the lower
1233 8 bits. After insn 'r4 *= 14' the state becomes
1234 R4=inv(id=0,umax_value=3570,var_off=(0x0; 0xfffe)), since multiplying an 8-bit
1235 value by constant 14 will keep upper 52 bits as zero, also the least significant
1236 bit will be zero as 14 is even. Similarly 'r2 >>= 48' will make
1237 R2=inv(id=0,umax_value=65535,var_off=(0x0; 0xffff)), since the shift is not sign
1238 extending. This logic is implemented in adjust_reg_min_max_vals() function,
1239 which calls adjust_ptr_min_max_vals() for adding pointer to scalar (or vice
1240 versa) and adjust_scalar_min_max_vals() for operations on two scalars.
1242 The end result is that bpf program author can access packet directly
1243 using normal C code as:
1244 void *data = (void *)(long)skb->data;
1245 void *data_end = (void *)(long)skb->data_end;
1246 struct eth_hdr *eth = data;
1247 struct iphdr *iph = data + sizeof(*eth);
1248 struct udphdr *udp = data + sizeof(*eth) + sizeof(*iph);
1250 if (data + sizeof(*eth) + sizeof(*iph) + sizeof(*udp) > data_end)
1252 if (eth->h_proto != htons(ETH_P_IP))
1254 if (iph->protocol != IPPROTO_UDP || iph->ihl != 5)
1256 if (udp->dest == 53 || udp->source == 9)
1258 which makes such programs easier to write comparing to LD_ABS insn
1259 and significantly faster.
1263 'maps' is a generic storage of different types for sharing data between kernel
1266 The maps are accessed from user space via BPF syscall, which has commands:
1267 - create a map with given type and attributes
1268 map_fd = bpf(BPF_MAP_CREATE, union bpf_attr *attr, u32 size)
1269 using attr->map_type, attr->key_size, attr->value_size, attr->max_entries
1270 returns process-local file descriptor or negative error
1272 - lookup key in a given map
1273 err = bpf(BPF_MAP_LOOKUP_ELEM, union bpf_attr *attr, u32 size)
1274 using attr->map_fd, attr->key, attr->value
1275 returns zero and stores found elem into value or negative error
1277 - create or update key/value pair in a given map
1278 err = bpf(BPF_MAP_UPDATE_ELEM, union bpf_attr *attr, u32 size)
1279 using attr->map_fd, attr->key, attr->value
1280 returns zero or negative error
1282 - find and delete element by key in a given map
1283 err = bpf(BPF_MAP_DELETE_ELEM, union bpf_attr *attr, u32 size)
1284 using attr->map_fd, attr->key
1286 - to delete map: close(fd)
1287 Exiting process will delete maps automatically
1289 userspace programs use this syscall to create/access maps that eBPF programs
1290 are concurrently updating.
1292 maps can have different types: hash, array, bloom filter, radix-tree, etc.
1294 The map is defined by:
1296 . max number of elements
1298 . value size in bytes
1302 The verifier does not actually walk all possible paths through the program. For
1303 each new branch to analyse, the verifier looks at all the states it's previously
1304 been in when at this instruction. If any of them contain the current state as a
1305 subset, the branch is 'pruned' - that is, the fact that the previous state was
1306 accepted implies the current state would be as well. For instance, if in the
1307 previous state, r1 held a packet-pointer, and in the current state, r1 holds a
1308 packet-pointer with a range as long or longer and at least as strict an
1309 alignment, then r1 is safe. Similarly, if r2 was NOT_INIT before then it can't
1310 have been used by any path from that point, so any value in r2 (including
1311 another NOT_INIT) is safe. The implementation is in the function regsafe().
1312 Pruning considers not only the registers but also the stack (and any spilled
1313 registers it may hold). They must all be safe for the branch to be pruned.
1314 This is implemented in states_equal().
1316 Understanding eBPF verifier messages
1317 ------------------------------------
1319 The following are few examples of invalid eBPF programs and verifier error
1320 messages as seen in the log:
1322 Program with unreachable instructions:
1323 static struct bpf_insn prog[] = {
1330 Program that reads uninitialized register:
1331 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_0, BPF_REG_2),
1337 Program that doesn't initialize R0 before exiting:
1338 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_1),
1345 Program that accesses stack out of bounds:
1346 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, 8, 0),
1349 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 +8) = 0
1350 invalid stack off=8 size=8
1352 Program that doesn't initialize stack before passing its address into function:
1353 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1354 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1355 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1356 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1363 invalid indirect read from stack off -8+0 size 8
1365 Program that uses invalid map_fd=0 while calling to map_lookup_elem() function:
1366 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, -8, 0),
1367 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1368 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1369 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1370 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1373 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = 0
1378 fd 0 is not pointing to valid bpf_map
1380 Program that doesn't check return value of map_lookup_elem() before accessing
1382 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, -8, 0),
1383 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1384 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1385 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1386 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1387 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_0, 0, 0),
1390 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = 0
1395 5: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +0) = 0
1396 R0 invalid mem access 'map_value_or_null'
1398 Program that correctly checks map_lookup_elem() returned value for NULL, but
1399 accesses the memory with incorrect alignment:
1400 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, -8, 0),
1401 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1402 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1403 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1404 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1405 BPF_JMP_IMM(BPF_JEQ, BPF_REG_0, 0, 1),
1406 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_0, 4, 0),
1409 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = 0
1414 5: (15) if r0 == 0x0 goto pc+1
1416 6: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +4) = 0
1417 misaligned access off 4 size 8
1419 Program that correctly checks map_lookup_elem() returned value for NULL and
1420 accesses memory with correct alignment in one side of 'if' branch, but fails
1421 to do so in the other side of 'if' branch:
1422 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, -8, 0),
1423 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1424 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1425 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1426 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1427 BPF_JMP_IMM(BPF_JEQ, BPF_REG_0, 0, 2),
1428 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_0, 0, 0),
1430 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_0, 0, 1),
1433 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = 0
1438 5: (15) if r0 == 0x0 goto pc+2
1440 6: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +0) = 0
1443 from 5 to 8: R0=imm0 R10=fp
1444 8: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +0) = 1
1445 R0 invalid mem access 'imm'
1450 Next to the BPF toolchain, the kernel also ships a test module that contains
1451 various test cases for classic and internal BPF that can be executed against
1452 the BPF interpreter and JIT compiler. It can be found in lib/test_bpf.c and
1453 enabled via Kconfig:
1457 After the module has been built and installed, the test suite can be executed
1458 via insmod or modprobe against 'test_bpf' module. Results of the test cases
1459 including timings in nsec can be found in the kernel log (dmesg).
1464 Also trinity, the Linux syscall fuzzer, has built-in support for BPF and
1465 SECCOMP-BPF kernel fuzzing.
1470 The document was written in the hope that it is found useful and in order
1471 to give potential BPF hackers or security auditors a better overview of
1472 the underlying architecture.
1474 Jay Schulist <jschlst@samba.org>
1475 Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
1476 Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>