d7e583a6ea
This adds a generic layer called bpf_mprog which can be reused by different
attachment layers to enable multi-program attachment and dependency resolution.
In-kernel users of the bpf_mprog don't need to care about the dependency
resolution internals, they can just consume it with few API calls.
The initial idea of having a generic API sparked out of discussion [0] from an
earlier revision of this work where tc's priority was reused and exposed via
BPF uapi as a way to coordinate dependencies among tc BPF programs, similar
as-is for classic tc BPF. The feedback was that priority provides a bad user
experience and is hard to use [1], e.g.:
I cannot help but feel that priority logic copy-paste from old tc, netfilter
and friends is done because "that's how things were done in the past". [...]
Priority gets exposed everywhere in uapi all the way to bpftool when it's
right there for users to understand. And that's the main problem with it.
The user don't want to and don't need to be aware of it, but uapi forces them
to pick the priority. [...] Your cover letter [0] example proves that in
real life different service pick the same priority. They simply don't know
any better. Priority is an unnecessary magic that apps _have_ to pick, so
they just copy-paste and everyone ends up using the same.
The course of the discussion showed more and more the need for a generic,
reusable API where the "same look and feel" can be applied for various other
program types beyond just tc BPF, for example XDP today does not have multi-
program support in kernel, but also there was interest around this API for
improving management of cgroup program types. Such common multi-program
management concept is useful for BPF management daemons or user space BPF
applications coordinating internally about their attachments.
Both from Cilium and Meta side [2], we've collected the following requirements
for a generic attach/detach/query API for multi-progs which has been implemented
as part of this work:
- Support prog-based attach/detach and link API
- Dependency directives (can also be combined):
- BPF_F_{BEFORE,AFTER} with relative_{fd,id} which can be {prog,link,none}
- BPF_F_ID flag as {fd,id} toggle; the rationale for id is so that user
space application does not need CAP_SYS_ADMIN to retrieve foreign fds
via bpf_*_get_fd_by_id()
- BPF_F_LINK flag as {prog,link} toggle
- If relative_{fd,id} is none, then BPF_F_BEFORE will just prepend, and
BPF_F_AFTER will just append for attaching
- Enforced only at attach time
- BPF_F_REPLACE with replace_bpf_fd which can be prog, links have their
own infra for replacing their internal prog
- If no flags are set, then it's default append behavior for attaching
- Internal revision counter and optionally being able to pass expected_revision
- User space application can query current state with revision, and pass it
along for attachment to assert current state before doing updates
- Query also gets extension for link_ids array and link_attach_flags:
- prog_ids are always filled with program IDs
- link_ids are filled with link IDs when link was used, otherwise 0
- {prog,link}_attach_flags for holding {prog,link}-specific flags
- Must be easy to integrate/reuse for in-kernel users
The uapi-side changes needed for supporting bpf_mprog are rather minimal,
consisting of the additions of the attachment flags, revision counter, and
expanding existing union with relative_{fd,id} member.
The bpf_mprog framework consists of an bpf_mprog_entry object which holds
an array of bpf_mprog_fp (fast-path structure). The bpf_mprog_cp (control-path
structure) is part of bpf_mprog_bundle. Both have been separated, so that
fast-path gets efficient packing of bpf_prog pointers for maximum cache
efficiency. Also, array has been chosen instead of linked list or other
structures to remove unnecessary indirections for a fast point-to-entry in
tc for BPF.
The bpf_mprog_entry comes as a pair via bpf_mprog_bundle so that in case of
updates the peer bpf_mprog_entry is populated and then just swapped which
avoids additional allocations that could otherwise fail, for example, in
detach case. bpf_mprog_{fp,cp} arrays are currently static, but they could
be converted to dynamic allocation if necessary at a point in future.
Locking is deferred to the in-kernel user of bpf_mprog, for example, in case
of tcx which uses this API in the next patch, it piggybacks on rtnl.
An extensive test suite for checking all aspects of this API for prog-based
attach/detach and link API comes as BPF selftests in this series.
Thanks also to Andrii Nakryiko for early API discussions wrt Meta's BPF prog
management.
[0] https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20221004231143.19190-1-daniel@iogearbox.net
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/CAADnVQ+gEY3FjCR=+DmjDR4gp5bOYZUFJQXj4agKFHT9CQPZBw@mail.gmail.com
[2] http://vger.kernel.org/bpfconf2023_material/tcx_meta_netdev_borkmann.pdf
Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230719140858.13224-2-daniel@iogearbox.net
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
libbpf
This is the official home of the libbpf library.
Please use this Github repository for building and packaging libbpf and when using it in your projects through Git submodule.
Libbpf authoritative source code is developed as part of bpf-next Linux source
tree under
tools/lib/bpf subdirectory and is periodically synced to Github. As such, all the
libbpf changes should be sent to BPF mailing list,
please don't open PRs here unless you are changing Github-specific parts of libbpf
(e.g., Github-specific Makefile).
Libbpf and general BPF usage questions
Libbpf documentation can be found here. It's an ongoing effort and has ways to go, but please take a look and consider contributing as well.
Please check out libbpf-bootstrap and the companion blog post for the examples of building BPF applications with libbpf. libbpf-tools are also a good source of the real-world libbpf-based tracing tools.
See also "BPF CO-RE reference guide" for the coverage of practical aspects of building BPF CO-RE applications and "BPF CO-RE" for general introduction into BPF portability issues and BPF CO-RE origins.
All general BPF questions, including kernel functionality, libbpf APIs and their application, should be sent to bpf@vger.kernel.org mailing list. You can subscribe to it here and search its archive here. Please search the archive before asking new questions. It very well might be that this was already addressed or answered before.
bpf@vger.kernel.org is monitored by many more people and they will happily try to help you with whatever issue you have. This repository's PRs and issues should be opened only for dealing with issues pertaining to specific way this libbpf mirror repo is set up and organized.
Building libbpf
libelf is an internal dependency of libbpf and thus it is required to link
against and must be installed on the system for applications to work.
pkg-config is used by default to find libelf, and the program called can be
overridden with PKG_CONFIG.
If using pkg-config at build time is not desired, it can be disabled by
setting NO_PKG_CONFIG=1 when calling make.
To build both static libbpf.a and shared libbpf.so:
$ cd src
$ make
To build only static libbpf.a library in directory build/ and install them together with libbpf headers in a staging directory root/:
$ cd src
$ mkdir build root
$ BUILD_STATIC_ONLY=y OBJDIR=build DESTDIR=root make install
To build both static libbpf.a and shared libbpf.so against a custom libelf dependency installed in /build/root/ and install them together with libbpf headers in a build directory /build/root/:
$ cd src
$ PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/build/root/lib64/pkgconfig DESTDIR=/build/root make install
BPF CO-RE (Compile Once – Run Everywhere)
Libbpf supports building BPF CO-RE-enabled applications, which, in contrast to BCC, do not require Clang/LLVM runtime being deployed to target servers and doesn't rely on kernel-devel headers being available.
It does rely on kernel to be built with BTF type information, though. Some major Linux distributions come with kernel BTF already built in:
- Fedora 31+
- RHEL 8.2+
- OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (in the next release, as of 2020-06-04)
- Arch Linux (from kernel 5.7.1.arch1-1)
- Manjaro (from kernel 5.4 if compiled after 2021-06-18)
- Ubuntu 20.10
- Debian 11 (amd64/arm64)
If your kernel doesn't come with BTF built-in, you'll need to build custom kernel. You'll need:
pahole1.16+ tool (part ofdwarvespackage), which performs DWARF to BTF conversion;- kernel built with
CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF=yoption; - you can check if your kernel has BTF built-in by looking for
/sys/kernel/btf/vmlinuxfile:
$ ls -la /sys/kernel/btf/vmlinux
-r--r--r--. 1 root root 3541561 Jun 2 18:16 /sys/kernel/btf/vmlinux
To develop and build BPF programs, you'll need Clang/LLVM 10+. The following distributions have Clang/LLVM 10+ packaged by default:
- Fedora 32+
- Ubuntu 20.04+
- Arch Linux
- Ubuntu 20.10 (LLVM 11)
- Debian 11 (LLVM 11)
- Alpine 3.13+
Otherwise, please make sure to update it on your system.
The following resources are useful to understand what BPF CO-RE is and how to use it:
- BPF CO-RE reference guide
- BPF Portability and CO-RE
- HOWTO: BCC to libbpf conversion
- libbpf-tools in BCC repo contain lots of real-world tools converted from BCC to BPF CO-RE. Consider converting some more to both contribute to the BPF community and gain some more experience with it.
Distributions
Distributions packaging libbpf from this mirror:
Benefits of packaging from the mirror over packaging from kernel sources:
- Consistent versioning across distributions.
- No ties to any specific kernel, transparent handling of older kernels. Libbpf is designed to be kernel-agnostic and work across multitude of kernel versions. It has built-in mechanisms to gracefully handle older kernels, that are missing some of the features, by working around or gracefully degrading functionality. Thus libbpf is not tied to a specific kernel version and can/should be packaged and versioned independently.
- Continuous integration testing via GitHub Actions.
- Static code analysis via LGTM and Coverity.
Package dependencies of libbpf, package names may vary across distros:
- zlib
- libelf
bpf-next to Github sync
All the gory details of syncing can be found in scripts/sync-kernel.sh
script. See SYNC.md for instruction.
Some header files in this repo (include/linux/*.h) are reduced versions of
their counterpart files at
bpf-next's
tools/include/linux/*.h to make compilation successful.
License
This work is dual-licensed under BSD 2-clause license and GNU LGPL v2.1 license. You can choose between one of them if you use this work.
SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause OR LGPL-2.1