BPF kernel <-> kernel API stability has been discussed at length over
the last several weeks and months. Now that we've largely aligned over
kfuncs being the way forward, and BPF helpers being considered
functionally frozen, it's time to document the expectations for kfunc
lifecycles and stability so that everyone (BPF users, kfunc developers,
and maintainers) are all aligned, and have a crystal-clear understanding
of the expectations surrounding kfuncs.
To do that, this patch adds that documentation to the main kfuncs
documentation page via a new 'kfunc lifecycle expectations' section. The
patch describes how decisions are made in the kernel regarding whether
to include, keep, deprecate, or change / remove a kfunc. As described
very overtly in the patch itself, but likely worth highlighting here:
"kfunc stability" does not mean, nor ever will mean, "BPF APIs may block
development elsewhere in the kernel".
Rather, the intention and expectation is for kfuncs to be treated like
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL symbols in the kernel. The goal is for kfuncs to be a
safe and valuable option for maintainers and kfunc developers to extend
the kernel, without tying anyone's hands, or imposing any kind of
restrictions on maintainers in the same way that UAPI changes do.
In addition to the 'kfunc lifecycle expectations' section, this patch
also adds documentation for a new KF_DEPRECATED kfunc flag which kfunc
authors or maintainers can choose to add to kfuncs if and when they
decide to deprecate them. Note that as described in the patch itself, a
kfunc need not be deprecated before being changed or removed -- this
flag is simply provided as an available deprecation mechanism for those
that want to provide a deprecation story / timeline to their users.
When necessary, kfuncs may be changed or removed to accommodate changes
elsewhere in the kernel without any deprecation at all.
Reviewed-by: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@gmail.com>
Co-developed-by: Toke Høiland-Jørgensen <toke@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: David Vernet <void@manifault.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230203155727.793518-2-void@manifault.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Now that the __bpf_kfunc macro has been added to linux/btf.h, include a
blurb about it in the kfuncs.rst file. In order for the macro to
successfully render with .. kernel-doc, we'll also need to add it to the
c_id_attributes array.
Signed-off-by: David Vernet <void@manifault.com>
Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
Acked-by: Stanislav Fomichev <sdf@google.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20230201173016.342758-3-void@manifault.com
When comparing BTF IDs for pointers being passed to kfunc arguments, the
verifier will allow pointer types that are equivalent according to the C
standard. For example, for:
struct bpf_cpumask {
cpumask_t cpumask;
refcount_t usage;
};
The verifier will allow a struct bpf_cpumask * to be passed to a kfunc
that takes a const struct cpumask * (cpumask_t is a typedef of struct
cpumask). The exception to this rule is if a type is suffixed with
___init, such as:
struct nf_conn___init {
struct nf_conn ct;
};
The verifier will _not_ allow a struct nf_conn___init * to be passed to
a kfunc that expects a struct nf_conn *. This patch documents this
behavior in the kfuncs documentation page.
Signed-off-by: David Vernet <void@manifault.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230125143816.721952-8-void@manifault.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
A prior change defined a new BTF_TYPE_SAFE_NESTED macro in the verifier
which allows developers to specify when a pointee field in a struct type
should inherit its parent pointer's trusted status. This patch updates
the kfuncs documentation to specify this macro and how it can be used.
Signed-off-by: David Vernet <void@manifault.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230125143816.721952-7-void@manifault.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Now that we've added a series of new cpumask kfuncs, we should document
them so users can easily use them. This patch adds a new cpumasks.rst
file to document them.
Signed-off-by: David Vernet <void@manifault.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230125143816.721952-6-void@manifault.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
bpf_cgroup_acquire(), bpf_cgroup_release(), bpf_cgroup_kptr_get(), and
bpf_cgroup_ancestor(), are kfuncs that were recently added to
kernel/bpf/helpers.c. These are "core" kfuncs in that they're available
for use in any tracepoint or struct_ops BPF program. Though they have no
ABI stability guarantees, we should still document them. This patch adds
a struct cgroup * subsection to the Core kfuncs section which describes
each of these kfuncs.
Signed-off-by: David Vernet <void@manifault.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221207204911.873646-3-void@manifault.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
bpf_task_acquire(), bpf_task_release(), and bpf_task_from_pid() are
kfuncs that were recently added to kernel/bpf/helpers.c. These are
"core" kfuncs in that they're available for use for any tracepoint or
struct_ops BPF program. Though they have no ABI stability guarantees, we
should still document them. This patch adds a new Core kfuncs section to
the BPF kfuncs doc, and adds entries for all of these task kfuncs.
Note that bpf_task_kptr_get() is not documented, as it still returns
NULL while we're working to resolve how it can use RCU to ensure struct
task_struct * lifetime.
Signed-off-by: David Vernet <void@manifault.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221207204911.873646-2-void@manifault.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Kfuncs currently support specifying the KF_TRUSTED_ARGS flag to signal
to the verifier that it should enforce that a BPF program passes it a
"safe", trusted pointer. Currently, "safe" means that the pointer is
either PTR_TO_CTX, or is refcounted. There may be cases, however, where
the kernel passes a BPF program a safe / trusted pointer to an object
that the BPF program wishes to use as a kptr, but because the object
does not yet have a ref_obj_id from the perspective of the verifier, the
program would be unable to pass it to a KF_ACQUIRE | KF_TRUSTED_ARGS
kfunc.
The solution is to expand the set of pointers that are considered
trusted according to KF_TRUSTED_ARGS, so that programs can invoke kfuncs
with these pointers without getting rejected by the verifier.
There is already a PTR_UNTRUSTED flag that is set in some scenarios,
such as when a BPF program reads a kptr directly from a map
without performing a bpf_kptr_xchg() call. These pointers of course can
and should be rejected by the verifier. Unfortunately, however,
PTR_UNTRUSTED does not cover all the cases for safety that need to
be addressed to adequately protect kfuncs. Specifically, pointers
obtained by a BPF program "walking" a struct are _not_ considered
PTR_UNTRUSTED according to BPF. For example, say that we were to add a
kfunc called bpf_task_acquire(), with KF_ACQUIRE | KF_TRUSTED_ARGS, to
acquire a struct task_struct *. If we only used PTR_UNTRUSTED to signal
that a task was unsafe to pass to a kfunc, the verifier would mistakenly
allow the following unsafe BPF program to be loaded:
SEC("tp_btf/task_newtask")
int BPF_PROG(unsafe_acquire_task,
struct task_struct *task,
u64 clone_flags)
{
struct task_struct *acquired, *nested;
nested = task->last_wakee;
/* Would not be rejected by the verifier. */
acquired = bpf_task_acquire(nested);
if (!acquired)
return 0;
bpf_task_release(acquired);
return 0;
}
To address this, this patch defines a new type flag called PTR_TRUSTED
which tracks whether a PTR_TO_BTF_ID pointer is safe to pass to a
KF_TRUSTED_ARGS kfunc or a BPF helper function. PTR_TRUSTED pointers are
passed directly from the kernel as a tracepoint or struct_ops callback
argument. Any nested pointer that is obtained from walking a PTR_TRUSTED
pointer is no longer PTR_TRUSTED. From the example above, the struct
task_struct *task argument is PTR_TRUSTED, but the 'nested' pointer
obtained from 'task->last_wakee' is not PTR_TRUSTED.
A subsequent patch will add kfuncs for storing a task kfunc as a kptr,
and then another patch will add selftests to validate.
Signed-off-by: David Vernet <void@manifault.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221120051004.3605026-3-void@manifault.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Allow passing known constant scalars as arguments to kfuncs that do not
represent a size parameter. We use mark_chain_precision for the constant
scalar argument to mark it precise. This makes the search pruning
optimization of verifier more conservative for such kfunc calls, and
each non-distinct argument is considered unequivalent.
We will use this support to then expose a bpf_obj_new function where it
takes the local type ID of a type in program BTF, and returns a
PTR_TO_BTF_ID | MEM_ALLOC to the local type, and allows programs to
allocate their own objects.
Each type ID resolves to a distinct type with a possibly distinct size,
hence the type ID constant matters in terms of program safety and its
precision needs to be checked between old and cur states inside regsafe.
The use of mark_chain_precision enables this.
Signed-off-by: Kumar Kartikeya Dwivedi <memxor@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221118015614.2013203-13-memxor@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Instead of forcing all arguments to be referenced pointers with non-zero
reg->ref_obj_id, tweak the definition of KF_TRUSTED_ARGS to mean that
only PTR_TO_BTF_ID (and socket types translated to PTR_TO_BTF_ID) have
that constraint, and require their offset to be set to 0.
The rest of pointer types are also accomodated in this definition of
trusted pointers, but with more relaxed rules regarding offsets.
The inherent meaning of setting this flag is that all kfunc pointer
arguments have a guranteed lifetime, and kernel object pointers
(PTR_TO_BTF_ID, PTR_TO_CTX) are passed in their unmodified form (with
offset 0). In general, this is not true for PTR_TO_BTF_ID as it can be
obtained using pointer walks.
Signed-off-by: Kumar Kartikeya Dwivedi <memxor@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Bianconi <lorenzo@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/cdede0043c47ed7a357f0a915d16f9ce06a1d589.1663778601.git.lorenzo@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Add KF_DESTRUCTIVE flag for destructive functions. Functions with this
flag set will require CAP_SYS_BOOT capabilities.
Signed-off-by: Artem Savkov <asavkov@redhat.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220810065905.475418-2-asavkov@redhat.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
This allows to declare a kfunc as sleepable and prevents its use in
a non sleepable program.
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Tissoires <benjamin.tissoires@redhat.com>
Co-developed-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Hao Luo <haoluo@google.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220805214821.1058337-2-haoluo@google.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
As the usage of kfuncs grows, we are starting to form consensus on the
kinds of attributes and annotations that kfuncs can have. To better help
developers make sense of the various options available at their disposal
to present an unstable API to the BPF users, document the various kfunc
flags and annotations, their expected usage, and explain the process of
defining and registering a kfunc set.
Cc: KP Singh <kpsingh@kernel.org>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Signed-off-by: Kumar Kartikeya Dwivedi <memxor@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220721134245.2450-6-memxor@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
David Vernet