1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
3 =======================================================
4 Linux Socket Filtering aka Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF)
5 =======================================================
10 Linux Socket Filtering (LSF) is derived from the Berkeley Packet Filter.
11 Though there are some distinct differences between the BSD and Linux
12 Kernel filtering, but when we speak of BPF or LSF in Linux context, we
13 mean the very same mechanism of filtering in the Linux kernel.
15 BPF allows a user-space program to attach a filter onto any socket and
16 allow or disallow certain types of data to come through the socket. LSF
17 follows exactly the same filter code structure as BSD's BPF, so referring
18 to the BSD bpf.4 manpage is very helpful in creating filters.
20 On Linux, BPF is much simpler than on BSD. One does not have to worry
21 about devices or anything like that. You simply create your filter code,
22 send it to the kernel via the SO_ATTACH_FILTER option and if your filter
23 code passes the kernel check on it, you then immediately begin filtering
26 You can also detach filters from your socket via the SO_DETACH_FILTER
27 option. This will probably not be used much since when you close a socket
28 that has a filter on it the filter is automagically removed. The other
29 less common case may be adding a different filter on the same socket where
30 you had another filter that is still running: the kernel takes care of
31 removing the old one and placing your new one in its place, assuming your
32 filter has passed the checks, otherwise if it fails the old filter will
33 remain on that socket.
35 SO_LOCK_FILTER option allows to lock the filter attached to a socket. Once
36 set, a filter cannot be removed or changed. This allows one process to
37 setup a socket, attach a filter, lock it then drop privileges and be
38 assured that the filter will be kept until the socket is closed.
40 The biggest user of this construct might be libpcap. Issuing a high-level
41 filter command like `tcpdump -i em1 port 22` passes through the libpcap
42 internal compiler that generates a structure that can eventually be loaded
43 via SO_ATTACH_FILTER to the kernel. `tcpdump -i em1 port 22 -ddd`
44 displays what is being placed into this structure.
46 Although we were only speaking about sockets here, BPF in Linux is used
47 in many more places. There's xt_bpf for netfilter, cls_bpf in the kernel
48 qdisc layer, SECCOMP-BPF (SECure COMPuting [1]_), and lots of other places
49 such as team driver, PTP code, etc where BPF is being used.
51 .. [1] Documentation/userspace-api/seccomp_filter.rst
55 Steven McCanne and Van Jacobson. 1993. The BSD packet filter: a new
56 architecture for user-level packet capture. In Proceedings of the
57 USENIX Winter 1993 Conference Proceedings on USENIX Winter 1993
58 Conference Proceedings (USENIX'93). USENIX Association, Berkeley,
59 CA, USA, 2-2. [http://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.pdf]
64 User space applications include <linux/filter.h> which contains the
65 following relevant structures::
67 struct sock_filter { /* Filter block */
68 __u16 code; /* Actual filter code */
69 __u8 jt; /* Jump true */
70 __u8 jf; /* Jump false */
71 __u32 k; /* Generic multiuse field */
74 Such a structure is assembled as an array of 4-tuples, that contains
75 a code, jt, jf and k value. jt and jf are jump offsets and k a generic
76 value to be used for a provided code::
78 struct sock_fprog { /* Required for SO_ATTACH_FILTER. */
79 unsigned short len; /* Number of filter blocks */
80 struct sock_filter __user *filter;
83 For socket filtering, a pointer to this structure (as shown in
84 follow-up example) is being passed to the kernel through setsockopt(2).
91 #include <sys/socket.h>
92 #include <sys/types.h>
93 #include <arpa/inet.h>
94 #include <linux/if_ether.h>
97 /* From the example above: tcpdump -i em1 port 22 -dd */
98 struct sock_filter code[] = {
99 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x0000000c },
100 { 0x15, 0, 8, 0x000086dd },
101 { 0x30, 0, 0, 0x00000014 },
102 { 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000084 },
103 { 0x15, 1, 0, 0x00000006 },
104 { 0x15, 0, 17, 0x00000011 },
105 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000036 },
106 { 0x15, 14, 0, 0x00000016 },
107 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000038 },
108 { 0x15, 12, 13, 0x00000016 },
109 { 0x15, 0, 12, 0x00000800 },
110 { 0x30, 0, 0, 0x00000017 },
111 { 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000084 },
112 { 0x15, 1, 0, 0x00000006 },
113 { 0x15, 0, 8, 0x00000011 },
114 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000014 },
115 { 0x45, 6, 0, 0x00001fff },
116 { 0xb1, 0, 0, 0x0000000e },
117 { 0x48, 0, 0, 0x0000000e },
118 { 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000016 },
119 { 0x48, 0, 0, 0x00000010 },
120 { 0x15, 0, 1, 0x00000016 },
121 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0x0000ffff },
122 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0x00000000 },
125 struct sock_fprog bpf = {
126 .len = ARRAY_SIZE(code),
130 sock = socket(PF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL));
132 /* ... bail out ... */
134 ret = setsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, &bpf, sizeof(bpf));
136 /* ... bail out ... */
141 The above example code attaches a socket filter for a PF_PACKET socket
142 in order to let all IPv4/IPv6 packets with port 22 pass. The rest will
143 be dropped for this socket.
145 The setsockopt(2) call to SO_DETACH_FILTER doesn't need any arguments
146 and SO_LOCK_FILTER for preventing the filter to be detached, takes an
147 integer value with 0 or 1.
149 Note that socket filters are not restricted to PF_PACKET sockets only,
150 but can also be used on other socket families.
152 Summary of system calls:
154 * setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, &val, sizeof(val));
155 * setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_DETACH_FILTER, &val, sizeof(val));
156 * setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_LOCK_FILTER, &val, sizeof(val));
158 Normally, most use cases for socket filtering on packet sockets will be
159 covered by libpcap in high-level syntax, so as an application developer
160 you should stick to that. libpcap wraps its own layer around all that.
162 Unless i) using/linking to libpcap is not an option, ii) the required BPF
163 filters use Linux extensions that are not supported by libpcap's compiler,
164 iii) a filter might be more complex and not cleanly implementable with
165 libpcap's compiler, or iv) particular filter codes should be optimized
166 differently than libpcap's internal compiler does; then in such cases
167 writing such a filter "by hand" can be of an alternative. For example,
168 xt_bpf and cls_bpf users might have requirements that could result in
169 more complex filter code, or one that cannot be expressed with libpcap
170 (e.g. different return codes for various code paths). Moreover, BPF JIT
171 implementors may wish to manually write test cases and thus need low-level
172 access to BPF code as well.
174 BPF engine and instruction set
175 ------------------------------
177 Under tools/bpf/ there's a small helper tool called bpf_asm which can
178 be used to write low-level filters for example scenarios mentioned in the
179 previous section. Asm-like syntax mentioned here has been implemented in
180 bpf_asm and will be used for further explanations (instead of dealing with
181 less readable opcodes directly, principles are the same). The syntax is
182 closely modelled after Steven McCanne's and Van Jacobson's BPF paper.
184 The BPF architecture consists of the following basic elements:
186 ======= ====================================================
188 ======= ====================================================
189 A 32 bit wide accumulator
190 X 32 bit wide X register
191 M[] 16 x 32 bit wide misc registers aka "scratch memory
192 store", addressable from 0 to 15
193 ======= ====================================================
195 A program, that is translated by bpf_asm into "opcodes" is an array that
196 consists of the following elements (as already mentioned)::
198 op:16, jt:8, jf:8, k:32
200 The element op is a 16 bit wide opcode that has a particular instruction
201 encoded. jt and jf are two 8 bit wide jump targets, one for condition
202 "jump if true", the other one "jump if false". Eventually, element k
203 contains a miscellaneous argument that can be interpreted in different
204 ways depending on the given instruction in op.
206 The instruction set consists of load, store, branch, alu, miscellaneous
207 and return instructions that are also represented in bpf_asm syntax. This
208 table lists all bpf_asm instructions available resp. what their underlying
209 opcodes as defined in linux/filter.h stand for:
211 =========== =================== =====================
212 Instruction Addressing mode Description
213 =========== =================== =====================
214 ld 1, 2, 3, 4, 12 Load word into A
215 ldi 4 Load word into A
216 ldh 1, 2 Load half-word into A
217 ldb 1, 2 Load byte into A
218 ldx 3, 4, 5, 12 Load word into X
219 ldxi 4 Load word into X
220 ldxb 5 Load byte into X
222 st 3 Store A into M[]
223 stx 3 Store X into M[]
227 jeq 7, 8, 9, 10 Jump on A == <x>
228 jneq 9, 10 Jump on A != <x>
229 jne 9, 10 Jump on A != <x>
230 jlt 9, 10 Jump on A < <x>
231 jle 9, 10 Jump on A <= <x>
232 jgt 7, 8, 9, 10 Jump on A > <x>
233 jge 7, 8, 9, 10 Jump on A >= <x>
234 jset 7, 8, 9, 10 Jump on A & <x>
252 =========== =================== =====================
254 The next table shows addressing formats from the 2nd column:
256 =============== =================== ===============================================
257 Addressing mode Syntax Description
258 =============== =================== ===============================================
260 1 [k] BHW at byte offset k in the packet
261 2 [x + k] BHW at the offset X + k in the packet
262 3 M[k] Word at offset k in M[]
263 4 #k Literal value stored in k
264 5 4*([k]&0xf) Lower nibble * 4 at byte offset k in the packet
266 7 #k,Lt,Lf Jump to Lt if true, otherwise jump to Lf
267 8 x/%x,Lt,Lf Jump to Lt if true, otherwise jump to Lf
268 9 #k,Lt Jump to Lt if predicate is true
269 10 x/%x,Lt Jump to Lt if predicate is true
270 11 a/%a Accumulator A
271 12 extension BPF extension
272 =============== =================== ===============================================
274 The Linux kernel also has a couple of BPF extensions that are used along
275 with the class of load instructions by "overloading" the k argument with
276 a negative offset + a particular extension offset. The result of such BPF
277 extensions are loaded into A.
279 Possible BPF extensions are shown in the following table:
281 =================================== =================================================
282 Extension Description
283 =================================== =================================================
287 poff Payload start offset
288 ifidx skb->dev->ifindex
289 nla Netlink attribute of type X with offset A
290 nlan Nested Netlink attribute of type X with offset A
292 queue skb->queue_mapping
293 hatype skb->dev->type
295 cpu raw_smp_processor_id()
296 vlan_tci skb_vlan_tag_get(skb)
297 vlan_avail skb_vlan_tag_present(skb)
298 vlan_tpid skb->vlan_proto
300 =================================== =================================================
302 These extensions can also be prefixed with '#'.
303 Examples for low-level BPF:
312 **IPv4 TCP packets**::
321 **(Accelerated) VLAN w/ id 10**::
328 **icmp random packet sampling, 1 in 4**:
334 # get a random uint32 number
341 **SECCOMP filter example**::
343 ld [4] /* offsetof(struct seccomp_data, arch) */
344 jne #0xc000003e, bad /* AUDIT_ARCH_X86_64 */
345 ld [0] /* offsetof(struct seccomp_data, nr) */
346 jeq #15, good /* __NR_rt_sigreturn */
347 jeq #231, good /* __NR_exit_group */
348 jeq #60, good /* __NR_exit */
349 jeq #0, good /* __NR_read */
350 jeq #1, good /* __NR_write */
351 jeq #5, good /* __NR_fstat */
352 jeq #9, good /* __NR_mmap */
353 jeq #14, good /* __NR_rt_sigprocmask */
354 jeq #13, good /* __NR_rt_sigaction */
355 jeq #35, good /* __NR_nanosleep */
356 bad: ret #0 /* SECCOMP_RET_KILL_THREAD */
357 good: ret #0x7fff0000 /* SECCOMP_RET_ALLOW */
359 The above example code can be placed into a file (here called "foo"), and
360 then be passed to the bpf_asm tool for generating opcodes, output that xt_bpf
361 and cls_bpf understands and can directly be loaded with. Example with above
365 4,40 0 0 12,21 0 1 2054,6 0 0 4294967295,6 0 0 0,
367 In copy and paste C-like output::
370 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x0000000c },
371 { 0x15, 0, 1, 0x00000806 },
372 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0xffffffff },
373 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0000000000 },
375 In particular, as usage with xt_bpf or cls_bpf can result in more complex BPF
376 filters that might not be obvious at first, it's good to test filters before
377 attaching to a live system. For that purpose, there's a small tool called
378 bpf_dbg under tools/bpf/ in the kernel source directory. This debugger allows
379 for testing BPF filters against given pcap files, single stepping through the
380 BPF code on the pcap's packets and to do BPF machine register dumps.
382 Starting bpf_dbg is trivial and just requires issuing::
386 In case input and output do not equal stdin/stdout, bpf_dbg takes an
387 alternative stdin source as a first argument, and an alternative stdout
388 sink as a second one, e.g. `./bpf_dbg test_in.txt test_out.txt`.
390 Other than that, a particular libreadline configuration can be set via
391 file "~/.bpf_dbg_init" and the command history is stored in the file
392 "~/.bpf_dbg_history".
394 Interaction in bpf_dbg happens through a shell that also has auto-completion
395 support (follow-up example commands starting with '>' denote bpf_dbg shell).
396 The usual workflow would be to ...
398 * 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
399 Loads a BPF filter from standard output of bpf_asm, or transformed via
400 e.g. ``tcpdump -iem1 -ddd port 22 | tr '\n' ','``. Note that for JIT
401 debugging (next section), this command creates a temporary socket and
402 loads the BPF code into the kernel. Thus, this will also be useful for
407 Loads standard tcpdump pcap file.
412 Runs through all packets from a pcap to account how many passes and fails
413 the filter will generate. A limit of packets to traverse can be given.
418 l1: jeq #0x800, l2, l5
424 Prints out BPF code disassembly.
428 /* { op, jt, jf, k }, */
429 { 0x28, 0, 0, 0x0000000c },
430 { 0x15, 0, 3, 0x00000800 },
431 { 0x30, 0, 0, 0x00000017 },
432 { 0x15, 0, 1, 0x00000001 },
433 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0x0000ffff },
434 { 0x06, 0, 0, 0000000000 },
436 Prints out C-style BPF code dump.
440 breakpoint at: l0: ldh [12]
444 breakpoint at: l1: jeq #0x800, l2, l5
448 Sets breakpoints at particular BPF instructions. Issuing a `run` command
449 will walk through the pcap file continuing from the current packet and
450 break when a breakpoint is being hit (another `run` will continue from
451 the currently active breakpoint executing next instructions):
456 pc: [0] <-- program counter
457 code: [40] jt[0] jf[0] k[12] <-- plain BPF code of current instruction
458 curr: l0: ldh [12] <-- disassembly of current instruction
459 A: [00000000][0] <-- content of A (hex, decimal)
460 X: [00000000][0] <-- content of X (hex, decimal)
461 M[0,15]: [00000000][0] <-- folded content of M (hex, decimal)
462 -- packet dump -- <-- Current packet from pcap (hex)
464 0: 00 19 cb 55 55 a4 00 14 a4 43 78 69 08 06 00 01
465 16: 08 00 06 04 00 01 00 14 a4 43 78 69 0a 3b 01 26
466 32: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0a 3b 01 01
474 Prints currently set breakpoints.
478 Performs single stepping through the BPF program from the current pc
479 offset. Thus, on each step invocation, above register dump is issued.
480 This can go forwards and backwards in time, a plain `step` will break
481 on the next BPF instruction, thus +1. (No `run` needs to be issued here.)
485 Selects a given packet from the pcap file to continue from. Thus, on
486 the next `run` or `step`, the BPF program is being evaluated against
487 the user pre-selected packet. Numbering starts just as in Wireshark
497 The Linux kernel has a built-in BPF JIT compiler for x86_64, SPARC,
498 PowerPC, ARM, ARM64, MIPS, RISC-V and s390 and can be enabled through
499 CONFIG_BPF_JIT. The JIT compiler is transparently invoked for each
500 attached filter from user space or for internal kernel users if it has
501 been previously enabled by root::
503 echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable
505 For JIT developers, doing audits etc, each compile run can output the generated
506 opcode image into the kernel log via::
508 echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable
510 Example output from dmesg::
512 [ 3389.935842] flen=6 proglen=70 pass=3 image=ffffffffa0069c8f
513 [ 3389.935847] JIT code: 00000000: 55 48 89 e5 48 83 ec 60 48 89 5d f8 44 8b 4f 68
514 [ 3389.935849] JIT code: 00000010: 44 2b 4f 6c 4c 8b 87 d8 00 00 00 be 0c 00 00 00
515 [ 3389.935850] JIT code: 00000020: e8 1d 94 ff e0 3d 00 08 00 00 75 16 be 17 00 00
516 [ 3389.935851] JIT code: 00000030: 00 e8 28 94 ff e0 83 f8 01 75 07 b8 ff ff 00 00
517 [ 3389.935852] JIT code: 00000040: eb 02 31 c0 c9 c3
519 When CONFIG_BPF_JIT_ALWAYS_ON is enabled, bpf_jit_enable is permanently set to 1 and
520 setting any other value than that will return in failure. This is even the case for
521 setting bpf_jit_enable to 2, since dumping the final JIT image into the kernel log
522 is discouraged and introspection through bpftool (under tools/bpf/bpftool/) is the
523 generally recommended approach instead.
525 In the kernel source tree under tools/bpf/, there's bpf_jit_disasm for
526 generating disassembly out of the kernel log's hexdump::
529 70 bytes emitted from JIT compiler (pass:3, flen:6)
530 ffffffffa0069c8f + <x>:
534 8: mov %rbx,-0x8(%rbp)
535 c: mov 0x68(%rdi),%r9d
536 10: sub 0x6c(%rdi),%r9d
537 14: mov 0xd8(%rdi),%r8
539 20: callq 0xffffffffe0ff9442
541 2a: jne 0x0000000000000042
543 31: callq 0xffffffffe0ff945e
545 39: jne 0x0000000000000042
547 40: jmp 0x0000000000000044
552 Issuing option `-o` will "annotate" opcodes to resulting assembler
553 instructions, which can be very useful for JIT developers:
555 # ./bpf_jit_disasm -o
556 70 bytes emitted from JIT compiler (pass:3, flen:6)
557 ffffffffa0069c8f + <x>:
564 8: mov %rbx,-0x8(%rbp)
566 c: mov 0x68(%rdi),%r9d
568 10: sub 0x6c(%rdi),%r9d
570 14: mov 0xd8(%rdi),%r8
574 20: callq 0xffffffffe0ff9442
578 2a: jne 0x0000000000000042
582 31: callq 0xffffffffe0ff945e
586 39: jne 0x0000000000000042
590 40: jmp 0x0000000000000044
599 For BPF JIT developers, bpf_jit_disasm, bpf_asm and bpf_dbg provides a useful
600 toolchain for developing and testing the kernel's JIT compiler.
604 Internally, for the kernel interpreter, a different instruction set
605 format with similar underlying principles from BPF described in previous
606 paragraphs is being used. However, the instruction set format is modelled
607 closer to the underlying architecture to mimic native instruction sets, so
608 that a better performance can be achieved (more details later). This new
609 ISA is called 'eBPF' or 'internal BPF' interchangeably. (Note: eBPF which
610 originates from [e]xtended BPF is not the same as BPF extensions! While
611 eBPF is an ISA, BPF extensions date back to classic BPF's 'overloading'
612 of BPF_LD | BPF_{B,H,W} | BPF_ABS instruction.)
614 It is designed to be JITed with one to one mapping, which can also open up
615 the possibility for GCC/LLVM compilers to generate optimized eBPF code through
616 an eBPF backend that performs almost as fast as natively compiled code.
618 The new instruction set was originally designed with the possible goal in
619 mind to write programs in "restricted C" and compile into eBPF with a optional
620 GCC/LLVM backend, so that it can just-in-time map to modern 64-bit CPUs with
621 minimal performance overhead over two steps, that is, C -> eBPF -> native code.
623 Currently, the new format is being used for running user BPF programs, which
624 includes seccomp BPF, classic socket filters, cls_bpf traffic classifier,
625 team driver's classifier for its load-balancing mode, netfilter's xt_bpf
626 extension, PTP dissector/classifier, and much more. They are all internally
627 converted by the kernel into the new instruction set representation and run
628 in the eBPF interpreter. For in-kernel handlers, this all works transparently
629 by using bpf_prog_create() for setting up the filter, resp.
630 bpf_prog_destroy() for destroying it. The macro
631 BPF_PROG_RUN(filter, ctx) transparently invokes eBPF interpreter or JITed
632 code to run the filter. 'filter' is a pointer to struct bpf_prog that we
633 got from bpf_prog_create(), and 'ctx' the given context (e.g.
634 skb pointer). All constraints and restrictions from bpf_check_classic() apply
635 before a conversion to the new layout is being done behind the scenes!
637 Currently, the classic BPF format is being used for JITing on most
638 32-bit architectures, whereas x86-64, aarch64, s390x, powerpc64,
639 sparc64, arm32, riscv64, riscv32 perform JIT compilation from eBPF
642 Some core changes of the new internal format:
644 - Number of registers increase from 2 to 10:
646 The old format had two registers A and X, and a hidden frame pointer. The
647 new layout extends this to be 10 internal registers and a read-only frame
648 pointer. Since 64-bit CPUs are passing arguments to functions via registers
649 the number of args from eBPF program to in-kernel function is restricted
650 to 5 and one register is used to accept return value from an in-kernel
651 function. Natively, x86_64 passes first 6 arguments in registers, aarch64/
652 sparcv9/mips64 have 7 - 8 registers for arguments; x86_64 has 6 callee saved
653 registers, and aarch64/sparcv9/mips64 have 11 or more callee saved registers.
655 Therefore, eBPF calling convention is defined as:
657 * R0 - return value from in-kernel function, and exit value for eBPF program
658 * R1 - R5 - arguments from eBPF program to in-kernel function
659 * R6 - R9 - callee saved registers that in-kernel function will preserve
660 * R10 - read-only frame pointer to access stack
662 Thus, all eBPF registers map one to one to HW registers on x86_64, aarch64,
663 etc, and eBPF calling convention maps directly to ABIs used by the kernel on
664 64-bit architectures.
666 On 32-bit architectures JIT may map programs that use only 32-bit arithmetic
667 and may let more complex programs to be interpreted.
669 R0 - R5 are scratch registers and eBPF program needs spill/fill them if
670 necessary across calls. Note that there is only one eBPF program (== one
671 eBPF main routine) and it cannot call other eBPF functions, it can only
672 call predefined in-kernel functions, though.
674 - Register width increases from 32-bit to 64-bit:
676 Still, the semantics of the original 32-bit ALU operations are preserved
677 via 32-bit subregisters. All eBPF registers are 64-bit with 32-bit lower
678 subregisters that zero-extend into 64-bit if they are being written to.
679 That behavior maps directly to x86_64 and arm64 subregister definition, but
680 makes other JITs more difficult.
682 32-bit architectures run 64-bit internal BPF programs via interpreter.
683 Their JITs may convert BPF programs that only use 32-bit subregisters into
684 native instruction set and let the rest being interpreted.
686 Operation is 64-bit, because on 64-bit architectures, pointers are also
687 64-bit wide, and we want to pass 64-bit values in/out of kernel functions,
688 so 32-bit eBPF registers would otherwise require to define register-pair
689 ABI, thus, there won't be able to use a direct eBPF register to HW register
690 mapping and JIT would need to do combine/split/move operations for every
691 register in and out of the function, which is complex, bug prone and slow.
692 Another reason is the use of atomic 64-bit counters.
694 - Conditional jt/jf targets replaced with jt/fall-through:
696 While the original design has constructs such as ``if (cond) jump_true;
697 else jump_false;``, they are being replaced into alternative constructs like
698 ``if (cond) jump_true; /* else fall-through */``.
700 - Introduces bpf_call insn and register passing convention for zero overhead
701 calls from/to other kernel functions:
703 Before an in-kernel function call, the internal BPF program needs to
704 place function arguments into R1 to R5 registers to satisfy calling
705 convention, then the interpreter will take them from registers and pass
706 to in-kernel function. If R1 - R5 registers are mapped to CPU registers
707 that are used for argument passing on given architecture, the JIT compiler
708 doesn't need to emit extra moves. Function arguments will be in the correct
709 registers and BPF_CALL instruction will be JITed as single 'call' HW
710 instruction. This calling convention was picked to cover common call
711 situations without performance penalty.
713 After an in-kernel function call, R1 - R5 are reset to unreadable and R0 has
714 a return value of the function. Since R6 - R9 are callee saved, their state
715 is preserved across the call.
717 For example, consider three C functions::
719 u64 f1() { return (*_f2)(1); }
720 u64 f2(u64 a) { return f3(a + 1, a); }
721 u64 f3(u64 a, u64 b) { return a - b; }
723 GCC can compile f1, f3 into x86_64::
734 Function f2 in eBPF may look like::
742 If f2 is JITed and the pointer stored to ``_f2``. The calls f1 -> f2 -> f3 and
743 returns will be seamless. Without JIT, __bpf_prog_run() interpreter needs to
744 be used to call into f2.
746 For practical reasons all eBPF programs have only one argument 'ctx' which is
747 already placed into R1 (e.g. on __bpf_prog_run() startup) and the programs
748 can call kernel functions with up to 5 arguments. Calls with 6 or more arguments
749 are currently not supported, but these restrictions can be lifted if necessary
752 On 64-bit architectures all register map to HW registers one to one. For
753 example, x86_64 JIT compiler can map them as ...
769 ... since x86_64 ABI mandates rdi, rsi, rdx, rcx, r8, r9 for argument passing
770 and rbx, r12 - r15 are callee saved.
772 Then the following internal BPF pseudo-program::
774 bpf_mov R6, R1 /* save ctx */
780 bpf_mov R7, R0 /* save foo() return value */
781 bpf_mov R1, R6 /* restore ctx for next call */
790 After JIT to x86_64 may look like::
795 mov %rbx,-0x228(%rbp)
796 mov %r13,-0x220(%rbp)
811 mov -0x228(%rbp),%rbx
812 mov -0x220(%rbp),%r13
816 Which is in this example equivalent in C to::
818 u64 bpf_filter(u64 ctx)
820 return foo(ctx, 2, 3, 4, 5) + bar(ctx, 6, 7, 8, 9);
823 In-kernel functions foo() and bar() with prototype: u64 (*)(u64 arg1, u64
824 arg2, u64 arg3, u64 arg4, u64 arg5); will receive arguments in proper
825 registers and place their return value into ``%rax`` which is R0 in eBPF.
826 Prologue and epilogue are emitted by JIT and are implicit in the
827 interpreter. R0-R5 are scratch registers, so eBPF program needs to preserve
828 them across the calls as defined by calling convention.
830 For example the following program is invalid::
837 After the call the registers R1-R5 contain junk values and cannot be read.
838 An in-kernel eBPF verifier is used to validate internal BPF programs.
840 Also in the new design, eBPF is limited to 4096 insns, which means that any
841 program will terminate quickly and will only call a fixed number of kernel
842 functions. Original BPF and the new format are two operand instructions,
843 which helps to do one-to-one mapping between eBPF insn and x86 insn during JIT.
845 The input context pointer for invoking the interpreter function is generic,
846 its content is defined by a specific use case. For seccomp register R1 points
847 to seccomp_data, for converted BPF filters R1 points to a skb.
849 A program, that is translated internally consists of the following elements::
851 op:16, jt:8, jf:8, k:32 ==> op:8, dst_reg:4, src_reg:4, off:16, imm:32
853 So far 87 internal BPF instructions were implemented. 8-bit 'op' opcode field
854 has room for new instructions. Some of them may use 16/24/32 byte encoding. New
855 instructions must be multiple of 8 bytes to preserve backward compatibility.
857 Internal BPF is a general purpose RISC instruction set. Not every register and
858 every instruction are used during translation from original BPF to new format.
859 For example, socket filters are not using ``exclusive add`` instruction, but
860 tracing filters may do to maintain counters of events, for example. Register R9
861 is not used by socket filters either, but more complex filters may be running
862 out of registers and would have to resort to spill/fill to stack.
864 Internal BPF can be used as a generic assembler for last step performance
865 optimizations, socket filters and seccomp are using it as assembler. Tracing
866 filters may use it as assembler to generate code from kernel. In kernel usage
867 may not be bounded by security considerations, since generated internal BPF code
868 may be optimizing internal code path and not being exposed to the user space.
869 Safety of internal BPF can come from a verifier (TBD). In such use cases as
870 described, it may be used as safe instruction set.
872 Just like the original BPF, the new format runs within a controlled environment,
873 is deterministic and the kernel can easily prove that. The safety of the program
874 can be determined in two steps: first step does depth-first-search to disallow
875 loops and other CFG validation; second step starts from the first insn and
876 descends all possible paths. It simulates execution of every insn and observes
877 the state change of registers and stack.
882 eBPF is reusing most of the opcode encoding from classic to simplify conversion
883 of classic BPF to eBPF. For arithmetic and jump instructions the 8-bit 'code'
884 field is divided into three parts::
886 +----------------+--------+--------------------+
887 | 4 bits | 1 bit | 3 bits |
888 | operation code | source | instruction class |
889 +----------------+--------+--------------------+
892 Three LSB bits store instruction class which is one of:
894 =================== ===============
895 Classic BPF classes eBPF classes
896 =================== ===============
897 BPF_LD 0x00 BPF_LD 0x00
898 BPF_LDX 0x01 BPF_LDX 0x01
899 BPF_ST 0x02 BPF_ST 0x02
900 BPF_STX 0x03 BPF_STX 0x03
901 BPF_ALU 0x04 BPF_ALU 0x04
902 BPF_JMP 0x05 BPF_JMP 0x05
903 BPF_RET 0x06 BPF_JMP32 0x06
904 BPF_MISC 0x07 BPF_ALU64 0x07
905 =================== ===============
907 When BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_ALU or BPF_JMP, 4th bit encodes source operand ...
914 * in classic BPF, this means::
916 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_X - use register X as source operand
917 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_K - use 32-bit immediate as source operand
919 * in eBPF, this means::
921 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_X - use 'src_reg' register as source operand
922 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_K - use 32-bit immediate as source operand
924 ... and four MSB bits store operation code.
926 If BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_ALU or BPF_ALU64 [ in eBPF ], BPF_OP(code) is one of::
939 BPF_MOV 0xb0 /* eBPF only: mov reg to reg */
940 BPF_ARSH 0xc0 /* eBPF only: sign extending shift right */
941 BPF_END 0xd0 /* eBPF only: endianness conversion */
943 If BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_JMP or BPF_JMP32 [ in eBPF ], BPF_OP(code) is one of::
945 BPF_JA 0x00 /* BPF_JMP only */
950 BPF_JNE 0x50 /* eBPF only: jump != */
951 BPF_JSGT 0x60 /* eBPF only: signed '>' */
952 BPF_JSGE 0x70 /* eBPF only: signed '>=' */
953 BPF_CALL 0x80 /* eBPF BPF_JMP only: function call */
954 BPF_EXIT 0x90 /* eBPF BPF_JMP only: function return */
955 BPF_JLT 0xa0 /* eBPF only: unsigned '<' */
956 BPF_JLE 0xb0 /* eBPF only: unsigned '<=' */
957 BPF_JSLT 0xc0 /* eBPF only: signed '<' */
958 BPF_JSLE 0xd0 /* eBPF only: signed '<=' */
960 So BPF_ADD | BPF_X | BPF_ALU means 32-bit addition in both classic BPF
961 and eBPF. There are only two registers in classic BPF, so it means A += X.
962 In eBPF it means dst_reg = (u32) dst_reg + (u32) src_reg; similarly,
963 BPF_XOR | BPF_K | BPF_ALU means A ^= imm32 in classic BPF and analogous
964 src_reg = (u32) src_reg ^ (u32) imm32 in eBPF.
966 Classic BPF is using BPF_MISC class to represent A = X and X = A moves.
967 eBPF is using BPF_MOV | BPF_X | BPF_ALU code instead. Since there are no
968 BPF_MISC operations in eBPF, the class 7 is used as BPF_ALU64 to mean
969 exactly the same operations as BPF_ALU, but with 64-bit wide operands
970 instead. So BPF_ADD | BPF_X | BPF_ALU64 means 64-bit addition, i.e.:
971 dst_reg = dst_reg + src_reg
973 Classic BPF wastes the whole BPF_RET class to represent a single ``ret``
974 operation. Classic BPF_RET | BPF_K means copy imm32 into return register
975 and perform function exit. eBPF is modeled to match CPU, so BPF_JMP | BPF_EXIT
976 in eBPF means function exit only. The eBPF program needs to store return
977 value into register R0 before doing a BPF_EXIT. Class 6 in eBPF is used as
978 BPF_JMP32 to mean exactly the same operations as BPF_JMP, but with 32-bit wide
979 operands for the comparisons instead.
981 For load and store instructions the 8-bit 'code' field is divided as::
983 +--------+--------+-------------------+
984 | 3 bits | 2 bits | 3 bits |
985 | mode | size | instruction class |
986 +--------+--------+-------------------+
989 Size modifier is one of ...
993 BPF_W 0x00 /* word */
994 BPF_H 0x08 /* half word */
995 BPF_B 0x10 /* byte */
996 BPF_DW 0x18 /* eBPF only, double word */
998 ... which encodes size of load/store operation::
1003 DW - 8 byte (eBPF only)
1005 Mode modifier is one of::
1007 BPF_IMM 0x00 /* used for 32-bit mov in classic BPF and 64-bit in eBPF */
1011 BPF_LEN 0x80 /* classic BPF only, reserved in eBPF */
1012 BPF_MSH 0xa0 /* classic BPF only, reserved in eBPF */
1013 BPF_XADD 0xc0 /* eBPF only, exclusive add */
1015 eBPF has two non-generic instructions: (BPF_ABS | <size> | BPF_LD) and
1016 (BPF_IND | <size> | BPF_LD) which are used to access packet data.
1018 They had to be carried over from classic to have strong performance of
1019 socket filters running in eBPF interpreter. These instructions can only
1020 be used when interpreter context is a pointer to ``struct sk_buff`` and
1021 have seven implicit operands. Register R6 is an implicit input that must
1022 contain pointer to sk_buff. Register R0 is an implicit output which contains
1023 the data fetched from the packet. Registers R1-R5 are scratch registers
1024 and must not be used to store the data across BPF_ABS | BPF_LD or
1025 BPF_IND | BPF_LD instructions.
1027 These instructions have implicit program exit condition as well. When
1028 eBPF program is trying to access the data beyond the packet boundary,
1029 the interpreter will abort the execution of the program. JIT compilers
1030 therefore must preserve this property. src_reg and imm32 fields are
1031 explicit inputs to these instructions.
1035 BPF_IND | BPF_W | BPF_LD means:
1037 R0 = ntohl(*(u32 *) (((struct sk_buff *) R6)->data + src_reg + imm32))
1038 and R1 - R5 were scratched.
1040 Unlike classic BPF instruction set, eBPF has generic load/store operations::
1042 BPF_MEM | <size> | BPF_STX: *(size *) (dst_reg + off) = src_reg
1043 BPF_MEM | <size> | BPF_ST: *(size *) (dst_reg + off) = imm32
1044 BPF_MEM | <size> | BPF_LDX: dst_reg = *(size *) (src_reg + off)
1045 BPF_XADD | BPF_W | BPF_STX: lock xadd *(u32 *)(dst_reg + off16) += src_reg
1046 BPF_XADD | BPF_DW | BPF_STX: lock xadd *(u64 *)(dst_reg + off16) += src_reg
1048 Where size is one of: BPF_B or BPF_H or BPF_W or BPF_DW. Note that 1 and
1049 2 byte atomic increments are not supported.
1051 eBPF has one 16-byte instruction: BPF_LD | BPF_DW | BPF_IMM which consists
1052 of two consecutive ``struct bpf_insn`` 8-byte blocks and interpreted as single
1053 instruction that loads 64-bit immediate value into a dst_reg.
1054 Classic BPF has similar instruction: BPF_LD | BPF_W | BPF_IMM which loads
1055 32-bit immediate value into a register.
1059 The safety of the eBPF program is determined in two steps.
1061 First step does DAG check to disallow loops and other CFG validation.
1062 In particular it will detect programs that have unreachable instructions.
1063 (though classic BPF checker allows them)
1065 Second step starts from the first insn and descends all possible paths.
1066 It simulates execution of every insn and observes the state change of
1067 registers and stack.
1069 At the start of the program the register R1 contains a pointer to context
1070 and has type PTR_TO_CTX.
1071 If verifier sees an insn that does R2=R1, then R2 has now type
1072 PTR_TO_CTX as well and can be used on the right hand side of expression.
1073 If R1=PTR_TO_CTX and insn is R2=R1+R1, then R2=SCALAR_VALUE,
1074 since addition of two valid pointers makes invalid pointer.
1075 (In 'secure' mode verifier will reject any type of pointer arithmetic to make
1076 sure that kernel addresses don't leak to unprivileged users)
1078 If register was never written to, it's not readable::
1083 will be rejected, since R2 is unreadable at the start of the program.
1085 After kernel function call, R1-R5 are reset to unreadable and
1086 R0 has a return type of the function.
1088 Since R6-R9 are callee saved, their state is preserved across the call.
1097 is a correct program. If there was R1 instead of R6, it would have
1100 load/store instructions are allowed only with registers of valid types, which
1101 are PTR_TO_CTX, PTR_TO_MAP, PTR_TO_STACK. They are bounds and alignment checked.
1106 bpf_xadd *(u32 *)(R1 + 3) += R2
1109 will be rejected, since R1 doesn't have a valid pointer type at the time of
1110 execution of instruction bpf_xadd.
1112 At the start R1 type is PTR_TO_CTX (a pointer to generic ``struct bpf_context``)
1113 A callback is used to customize verifier to restrict eBPF program access to only
1114 certain fields within ctx structure with specified size and alignment.
1116 For example, the following insn::
1118 bpf_ld R0 = *(u32 *)(R6 + 8)
1120 intends to load a word from address R6 + 8 and store it into R0
1121 If R6=PTR_TO_CTX, via is_valid_access() callback the verifier will know
1122 that offset 8 of size 4 bytes can be accessed for reading, otherwise
1123 the verifier will reject the program.
1124 If R6=PTR_TO_STACK, then access should be aligned and be within
1125 stack bounds, which are [-MAX_BPF_STACK, 0). In this example offset is 8,
1126 so it will fail verification, since it's out of bounds.
1128 The verifier will allow eBPF program to read data from stack only after
1131 Classic BPF verifier does similar check with M[0-15] memory slots.
1134 bpf_ld R0 = *(u32 *)(R10 - 4)
1138 Though R10 is correct read-only register and has type PTR_TO_STACK
1139 and R10 - 4 is within stack bounds, there were no stores into that location.
1141 Pointer register spill/fill is tracked as well, since four (R6-R9)
1142 callee saved registers may not be enough for some programs.
1144 Allowed function calls are customized with bpf_verifier_ops->get_func_proto()
1145 The eBPF verifier will check that registers match argument constraints.
1146 After the call register R0 will be set to return type of the function.
1148 Function calls is a main mechanism to extend functionality of eBPF programs.
1149 Socket filters may let programs to call one set of functions, whereas tracing
1150 filters may allow completely different set.
1152 If a function made accessible to eBPF program, it needs to be thought through
1153 from safety point of view. The verifier will guarantee that the function is
1154 called with valid arguments.
1156 seccomp vs socket filters have different security restrictions for classic BPF.
1157 Seccomp solves this by two stage verifier: classic BPF verifier is followed
1158 by seccomp verifier. In case of eBPF one configurable verifier is shared for
1161 See details of eBPF verifier in kernel/bpf/verifier.c
1163 Register value tracking
1164 -----------------------
1165 In order to determine the safety of an eBPF program, the verifier must track
1166 the range of possible values in each register and also in each stack slot.
1167 This is done with ``struct bpf_reg_state``, defined in include/linux/
1168 bpf_verifier.h, which unifies tracking of scalar and pointer values. Each
1169 register state has a type, which is either NOT_INIT (the register has not been
1170 written to), SCALAR_VALUE (some value which is not usable as a pointer), or a
1171 pointer type. The types of pointers describe their base, as follows:
1175 Pointer to bpf_context.
1177 Pointer to struct bpf_map. "Const" because arithmetic
1178 on these pointers is forbidden.
1180 Pointer to the value stored in a map element.
1181 PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE_OR_NULL
1182 Either a pointer to a map value, or NULL; map accesses
1183 (see section 'eBPF maps', below) return this type,
1184 which becomes a PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE when checked != NULL.
1185 Arithmetic on these pointers is forbidden.
1191 skb->data + headlen; arithmetic forbidden.
1193 Pointer to struct bpf_sock_ops, implicitly refcounted.
1194 PTR_TO_SOCKET_OR_NULL
1195 Either a pointer to a socket, or NULL; socket lookup
1196 returns this type, which becomes a PTR_TO_SOCKET when
1197 checked != NULL. PTR_TO_SOCKET is reference-counted,
1198 so programs must release the reference through the
1199 socket release function before the end of the program.
1200 Arithmetic on these pointers is forbidden.
1202 However, a pointer may be offset from this base (as a result of pointer
1203 arithmetic), and this is tracked in two parts: the 'fixed offset' and 'variable
1204 offset'. The former is used when an exactly-known value (e.g. an immediate
1205 operand) is added to a pointer, while the latter is used for values which are
1206 not exactly known. The variable offset is also used in SCALAR_VALUEs, to track
1207 the range of possible values in the register.
1209 The verifier's knowledge about the variable offset consists of:
1211 * minimum and maximum values as unsigned
1212 * minimum and maximum values as signed
1214 * knowledge of the values of individual bits, in the form of a 'tnum': a u64
1215 'mask' and a u64 'value'. 1s in the mask represent bits whose value is unknown;
1216 1s in the value represent bits known to be 1. Bits known to be 0 have 0 in both
1217 mask and value; no bit should ever be 1 in both. For example, if a byte is read
1218 into a register from memory, the register's top 56 bits are known zero, while
1219 the low 8 are unknown - which is represented as the tnum (0x0; 0xff). If we
1220 then OR this with 0x40, we get (0x40; 0xbf), then if we add 1 we get (0x0;
1221 0x1ff), because of potential carries.
1223 Besides arithmetic, the register state can also be updated by conditional
1224 branches. For instance, if a SCALAR_VALUE is compared > 8, in the 'true' branch
1225 it will have a umin_value (unsigned minimum value) of 9, whereas in the 'false'
1226 branch it will have a umax_value of 8. A signed compare (with BPF_JSGT or
1227 BPF_JSGE) would instead update the signed minimum/maximum values. Information
1228 from the signed and unsigned bounds can be combined; for instance if a value is
1229 first tested < 8 and then tested s> 4, the verifier will conclude that the value
1230 is also > 4 and s< 8, since the bounds prevent crossing the sign boundary.
1232 PTR_TO_PACKETs with a variable offset part have an 'id', which is common to all
1233 pointers sharing that same variable offset. This is important for packet range
1234 checks: after adding a variable to a packet pointer register A, if you then copy
1235 it to another register B and then add a constant 4 to A, both registers will
1236 share the same 'id' but the A will have a fixed offset of +4. Then if A is
1237 bounds-checked and found to be less than a PTR_TO_PACKET_END, the register B is
1238 now known to have a safe range of at least 4 bytes. See 'Direct packet access',
1239 below, for more on PTR_TO_PACKET ranges.
1241 The 'id' field is also used on PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE_OR_NULL, common to all copies of
1242 the pointer returned from a map lookup. This means that when one copy is
1243 checked and found to be non-NULL, all copies can become PTR_TO_MAP_VALUEs.
1244 As well as range-checking, the tracked information is also used for enforcing
1245 alignment of pointer accesses. For instance, on most systems the packet pointer
1246 is 2 bytes after a 4-byte alignment. If a program adds 14 bytes to that to jump
1247 over the Ethernet header, then reads IHL and addes (IHL * 4), the resulting
1248 pointer will have a variable offset known to be 4n+2 for some n, so adding the 2
1249 bytes (NET_IP_ALIGN) gives a 4-byte alignment and so word-sized accesses through
1250 that pointer are safe.
1251 The 'id' field is also used on PTR_TO_SOCKET and PTR_TO_SOCKET_OR_NULL, common
1252 to all copies of the pointer returned from a socket lookup. This has similar
1253 behaviour to the handling for PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE_OR_NULL->PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE, but
1254 it also handles reference tracking for the pointer. PTR_TO_SOCKET implicitly
1255 represents a reference to the corresponding ``struct sock``. To ensure that the
1256 reference is not leaked, it is imperative to NULL-check the reference and in
1257 the non-NULL case, and pass the valid reference to the socket release function.
1259 Direct packet access
1260 --------------------
1261 In cls_bpf and act_bpf programs the verifier allows direct access to the packet
1262 data via skb->data and skb->data_end pointers.
1265 1: r4 = *(u32 *)(r1 +80) /* load skb->data_end */
1266 2: r3 = *(u32 *)(r1 +76) /* load skb->data */
1269 5: if r5 > r4 goto pc+16
1270 R1=ctx R3=pkt(id=0,off=0,r=14) R4=pkt_end R5=pkt(id=0,off=14,r=14) R10=fp
1271 6: r0 = *(u16 *)(r3 +12) /* access 12 and 13 bytes of the packet */
1273 this 2byte load from the packet is safe to do, since the program author
1274 did check ``if (skb->data + 14 > skb->data_end) goto err`` at insn #5 which
1275 means that in the fall-through case the register R3 (which points to skb->data)
1276 has at least 14 directly accessible bytes. The verifier marks it
1277 as R3=pkt(id=0,off=0,r=14).
1278 id=0 means that no additional variables were added to the register.
1279 off=0 means that no additional constants were added.
1280 r=14 is the range of safe access which means that bytes [R3, R3 + 14) are ok.
1281 Note that R5 is marked as R5=pkt(id=0,off=14,r=14). It also points
1282 to the packet data, but constant 14 was added to the register, so
1283 it now points to ``skb->data + 14`` and accessible range is [R5, R5 + 14 - 14)
1284 which is zero bytes.
1286 More complex packet access may look like::
1289 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
1290 6: r0 = *(u8 *)(r3 +7) /* load 7th byte from the packet */
1291 7: r4 = *(u8 *)(r3 +12)
1293 9: r3 = *(u32 *)(r1 +76) /* load skb->data */
1301 17: r1 = *(u32 *)(r1 +80) /* load skb->data_end */
1302 18: if r2 > r1 goto pc+2
1303 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
1304 19: r1 = *(u8 *)(r3 +4)
1306 The state of the register R3 is R3=pkt(id=2,off=0,r=8)
1307 id=2 means that two ``r3 += rX`` instructions were seen, so r3 points to some
1308 offset within a packet and since the program author did
1309 ``if (r3 + 8 > r1) goto err`` at insn #18, the safe range is [R3, R3 + 8).
1310 The verifier only allows 'add'/'sub' operations on packet registers. Any other
1311 operation will set the register state to 'SCALAR_VALUE' and it won't be
1312 available for direct packet access.
1314 Operation ``r3 += rX`` may overflow and become less than original skb->data,
1315 therefore the verifier has to prevent that. So when it sees ``r3 += rX``
1316 instruction and rX is more than 16-bit value, any subsequent bounds-check of r3
1317 against skb->data_end will not give us 'range' information, so attempts to read
1318 through the pointer will give "invalid access to packet" error.
1320 Ex. after insn ``r4 = *(u8 *)(r3 +12)`` (insn #7 above) the state of r4 is
1321 R4=inv(id=0,umax_value=255,var_off=(0x0; 0xff)) which means that upper 56 bits
1322 of the register are guaranteed to be zero, and nothing is known about the lower
1323 8 bits. After insn ``r4 *= 14`` the state becomes
1324 R4=inv(id=0,umax_value=3570,var_off=(0x0; 0xfffe)), since multiplying an 8-bit
1325 value by constant 14 will keep upper 52 bits as zero, also the least significant
1326 bit will be zero as 14 is even. Similarly ``r2 >>= 48`` will make
1327 R2=inv(id=0,umax_value=65535,var_off=(0x0; 0xffff)), since the shift is not sign
1328 extending. This logic is implemented in adjust_reg_min_max_vals() function,
1329 which calls adjust_ptr_min_max_vals() for adding pointer to scalar (or vice
1330 versa) and adjust_scalar_min_max_vals() for operations on two scalars.
1332 The end result is that bpf program author can access packet directly
1333 using normal C code as::
1335 void *data = (void *)(long)skb->data;
1336 void *data_end = (void *)(long)skb->data_end;
1337 struct eth_hdr *eth = data;
1338 struct iphdr *iph = data + sizeof(*eth);
1339 struct udphdr *udp = data + sizeof(*eth) + sizeof(*iph);
1341 if (data + sizeof(*eth) + sizeof(*iph) + sizeof(*udp) > data_end)
1343 if (eth->h_proto != htons(ETH_P_IP))
1345 if (iph->protocol != IPPROTO_UDP || iph->ihl != 5)
1347 if (udp->dest == 53 || udp->source == 9)
1350 which makes such programs easier to write comparing to LD_ABS insn
1351 and significantly faster.
1355 'maps' is a generic storage of different types for sharing data between kernel
1358 The maps are accessed from user space via BPF syscall, which has commands:
1360 - create a map with given type and attributes
1361 ``map_fd = bpf(BPF_MAP_CREATE, union bpf_attr *attr, u32 size)``
1362 using attr->map_type, attr->key_size, attr->value_size, attr->max_entries
1363 returns process-local file descriptor or negative error
1365 - lookup key in a given map
1366 ``err = bpf(BPF_MAP_LOOKUP_ELEM, union bpf_attr *attr, u32 size)``
1367 using attr->map_fd, attr->key, attr->value
1368 returns zero and stores found elem into value or negative error
1370 - create or update key/value pair in a given map
1371 ``err = bpf(BPF_MAP_UPDATE_ELEM, union bpf_attr *attr, u32 size)``
1372 using attr->map_fd, attr->key, attr->value
1373 returns zero or negative error
1375 - find and delete element by key in a given map
1376 ``err = bpf(BPF_MAP_DELETE_ELEM, union bpf_attr *attr, u32 size)``
1377 using attr->map_fd, attr->key
1379 - to delete map: close(fd)
1380 Exiting process will delete maps automatically
1382 userspace programs use this syscall to create/access maps that eBPF programs
1383 are concurrently updating.
1385 maps can have different types: hash, array, bloom filter, radix-tree, etc.
1387 The map is defined by:
1390 - max number of elements
1392 - value size in bytes
1396 The verifier does not actually walk all possible paths through the program. For
1397 each new branch to analyse, the verifier looks at all the states it's previously
1398 been in when at this instruction. If any of them contain the current state as a
1399 subset, the branch is 'pruned' - that is, the fact that the previous state was
1400 accepted implies the current state would be as well. For instance, if in the
1401 previous state, r1 held a packet-pointer, and in the current state, r1 holds a
1402 packet-pointer with a range as long or longer and at least as strict an
1403 alignment, then r1 is safe. Similarly, if r2 was NOT_INIT before then it can't
1404 have been used by any path from that point, so any value in r2 (including
1405 another NOT_INIT) is safe. The implementation is in the function regsafe().
1406 Pruning considers not only the registers but also the stack (and any spilled
1407 registers it may hold). They must all be safe for the branch to be pruned.
1408 This is implemented in states_equal().
1410 Understanding eBPF verifier messages
1411 ------------------------------------
1413 The following are few examples of invalid eBPF programs and verifier error
1414 messages as seen in the log:
1416 Program with unreachable instructions::
1418 static struct bpf_insn prog[] = {
1427 Program that reads uninitialized register::
1429 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_0, BPF_REG_2),
1437 Program that doesn't initialize R0 before exiting::
1439 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_1),
1448 Program that accesses stack out of bounds::
1450 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, 8, 0),
1455 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 +8) = 0
1456 invalid stack off=8 size=8
1458 Program that doesn't initialize stack before passing its address into function::
1460 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1461 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1462 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1463 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1472 invalid indirect read from stack off -8+0 size 8
1474 Program that uses invalid map_fd=0 while calling to map_lookup_elem() function::
1476 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, -8, 0),
1477 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1478 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1479 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1480 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1485 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = 0
1490 fd 0 is not pointing to valid bpf_map
1492 Program that doesn't check return value of map_lookup_elem() before accessing
1495 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, -8, 0),
1496 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1497 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1498 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1499 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1500 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_0, 0, 0),
1505 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = 0
1510 5: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +0) = 0
1511 R0 invalid mem access 'map_value_or_null'
1513 Program that correctly checks map_lookup_elem() returned value for NULL, but
1514 accesses the memory with incorrect alignment::
1516 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, -8, 0),
1517 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1518 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1519 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1520 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1521 BPF_JMP_IMM(BPF_JEQ, BPF_REG_0, 0, 1),
1522 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_0, 4, 0),
1527 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = 0
1532 5: (15) if r0 == 0x0 goto pc+1
1534 6: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +4) = 0
1535 misaligned access off 4 size 8
1537 Program that correctly checks map_lookup_elem() returned value for NULL and
1538 accesses memory with correct alignment in one side of 'if' branch, but fails
1539 to do so in the other side of 'if' branch::
1541 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_10, -8, 0),
1542 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1543 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1544 BPF_LD_MAP_FD(BPF_REG_1, 0),
1545 BPF_RAW_INSN(BPF_JMP | BPF_CALL, 0, 0, 0, BPF_FUNC_map_lookup_elem),
1546 BPF_JMP_IMM(BPF_JEQ, BPF_REG_0, 0, 2),
1547 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_0, 0, 0),
1549 BPF_ST_MEM(BPF_DW, BPF_REG_0, 0, 1),
1554 0: (7a) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = 0
1559 5: (15) if r0 == 0x0 goto pc+2
1561 6: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +0) = 0
1564 from 5 to 8: R0=imm0 R10=fp
1565 8: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +0) = 1
1566 R0 invalid mem access 'imm'
1568 Program that performs a socket lookup then sets the pointer to NULL without
1571 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_2, 0),
1572 BPF_STX_MEM(BPF_W, BPF_REG_10, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1573 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1574 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1575 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_3, 4),
1576 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_4, 0),
1577 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_5, 0),
1578 BPF_EMIT_CALL(BPF_FUNC_sk_lookup_tcp),
1579 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_0, 0),
1585 1: (63) *(u32 *)(r10 -8) = r2
1591 7: (85) call bpf_sk_lookup_tcp#65
1594 Unreleased reference id=1, alloc_insn=7
1596 Program that performs a socket lookup but does not NULL-check the returned
1599 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_2, 0),
1600 BPF_STX_MEM(BPF_W, BPF_REG_10, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1601 BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
1602 BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
1603 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_3, 4),
1604 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_4, 0),
1605 BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_5, 0),
1606 BPF_EMIT_CALL(BPF_FUNC_sk_lookup_tcp),
1612 1: (63) *(u32 *)(r10 -8) = r2
1618 7: (85) call bpf_sk_lookup_tcp#65
1620 Unreleased reference id=1, alloc_insn=7
1625 Next to the BPF toolchain, the kernel also ships a test module that contains
1626 various test cases for classic and internal BPF that can be executed against
1627 the BPF interpreter and JIT compiler. It can be found in lib/test_bpf.c and
1628 enabled via Kconfig::
1632 After the module has been built and installed, the test suite can be executed
1633 via insmod or modprobe against 'test_bpf' module. Results of the test cases
1634 including timings in nsec can be found in the kernel log (dmesg).
1639 Also trinity, the Linux syscall fuzzer, has built-in support for BPF and
1640 SECCOMP-BPF kernel fuzzing.
1645 The document was written in the hope that it is found useful and in order
1646 to give potential BPF hackers or security auditors a better overview of
1647 the underlying architecture.
1649 - Jay Schulist <jschlst@samba.org>
1650 - Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
1651 - Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>