0001
0002 ===================
0003 Classic BPF vs eBPF
0004 ===================
0005
0006 eBPF is designed to be JITed with one to one mapping, which can also open up
0007 the possibility for GCC/LLVM compilers to generate optimized eBPF code through
0008 an eBPF backend that performs almost as fast as natively compiled code.
0009
0010 Some core changes of the eBPF format from classic BPF:
0011
0012 - Number of registers increase from 2 to 10:
0013
0014 The old format had two registers A and X, and a hidden frame pointer. The
0015 new layout extends this to be 10 internal registers and a read-only frame
0016 pointer. Since 64-bit CPUs are passing arguments to functions via registers
0017 the number of args from eBPF program to in-kernel function is restricted
0018 to 5 and one register is used to accept return value from an in-kernel
0019 function. Natively, x86_64 passes first 6 arguments in registers, aarch64/
0020 sparcv9/mips64 have 7 - 8 registers for arguments; x86_64 has 6 callee saved
0021 registers, and aarch64/sparcv9/mips64 have 11 or more callee saved registers.
0022
0023 Thus, all eBPF registers map one to one to HW registers on x86_64, aarch64,
0024 etc, and eBPF calling convention maps directly to ABIs used by the kernel on
0025 64-bit architectures.
0026
0027 On 32-bit architectures JIT may map programs that use only 32-bit arithmetic
0028 and may let more complex programs to be interpreted.
0029
0030 R0 - R5 are scratch registers and eBPF program needs spill/fill them if
0031 necessary across calls. Note that there is only one eBPF program (== one
0032 eBPF main routine) and it cannot call other eBPF functions, it can only
0033 call predefined in-kernel functions, though.
0034
0035 - Register width increases from 32-bit to 64-bit:
0036
0037 Still, the semantics of the original 32-bit ALU operations are preserved
0038 via 32-bit subregisters. All eBPF registers are 64-bit with 32-bit lower
0039 subregisters that zero-extend into 64-bit if they are being written to.
0040 That behavior maps directly to x86_64 and arm64 subregister definition, but
0041 makes other JITs more difficult.
0042
0043 32-bit architectures run 64-bit eBPF programs via interpreter.
0044 Their JITs may convert BPF programs that only use 32-bit subregisters into
0045 native instruction set and let the rest being interpreted.
0046
0047 Operation is 64-bit, because on 64-bit architectures, pointers are also
0048 64-bit wide, and we want to pass 64-bit values in/out of kernel functions,
0049 so 32-bit eBPF registers would otherwise require to define register-pair
0050 ABI, thus, there won't be able to use a direct eBPF register to HW register
0051 mapping and JIT would need to do combine/split/move operations for every
0052 register in and out of the function, which is complex, bug prone and slow.
0053 Another reason is the use of atomic 64-bit counters.
0054
0055 - Conditional jt/jf targets replaced with jt/fall-through:
0056
0057 While the original design has constructs such as ``if (cond) jump_true;
0058 else jump_false;``, they are being replaced into alternative constructs like
0059 ``if (cond) jump_true; /* else fall-through */``.
0060
0061 - Introduces bpf_call insn and register passing convention for zero overhead
0062 calls from/to other kernel functions:
0063
0064 Before an in-kernel function call, the eBPF program needs to
0065 place function arguments into R1 to R5 registers to satisfy calling
0066 convention, then the interpreter will take them from registers and pass
0067 to in-kernel function. If R1 - R5 registers are mapped to CPU registers
0068 that are used for argument passing on given architecture, the JIT compiler
0069 doesn't need to emit extra moves. Function arguments will be in the correct
0070 registers and BPF_CALL instruction will be JITed as single 'call' HW
0071 instruction. This calling convention was picked to cover common call
0072 situations without performance penalty.
0073
0074 After an in-kernel function call, R1 - R5 are reset to unreadable and R0 has
0075 a return value of the function. Since R6 - R9 are callee saved, their state
0076 is preserved across the call.
0077
0078 For example, consider three C functions::
0079
0080 u64 f1() { return (*_f2)(1); }
0081 u64 f2(u64 a) { return f3(a + 1, a); }
0082 u64 f3(u64 a, u64 b) { return a - b; }
0083
0084 GCC can compile f1, f3 into x86_64::
0085
0086 f1:
0087 movl $1, %edi
0088 movq _f2(%rip), %rax
0089 jmp *%rax
0090 f3:
0091 movq %rdi, %rax
0092 subq %rsi, %rax
0093 ret
0094
0095 Function f2 in eBPF may look like::
0096
0097 f2:
0098 bpf_mov R2, R1
0099 bpf_add R1, 1
0100 bpf_call f3
0101 bpf_exit
0102
0103 If f2 is JITed and the pointer stored to ``_f2``. The calls f1 -> f2 -> f3 and
0104 returns will be seamless. Without JIT, __bpf_prog_run() interpreter needs to
0105 be used to call into f2.
0106
0107 For practical reasons all eBPF programs have only one argument 'ctx' which is
0108 already placed into R1 (e.g. on __bpf_prog_run() startup) and the programs
0109 can call kernel functions with up to 5 arguments. Calls with 6 or more arguments
0110 are currently not supported, but these restrictions can be lifted if necessary
0111 in the future.
0112
0113 On 64-bit architectures all register map to HW registers one to one. For
0114 example, x86_64 JIT compiler can map them as ...
0115
0116 ::
0117
0118 R0 - rax
0119 R1 - rdi
0120 R2 - rsi
0121 R3 - rdx
0122 R4 - rcx
0123 R5 - r8
0124 R6 - rbx
0125 R7 - r13
0126 R8 - r14
0127 R9 - r15
0128 R10 - rbp
0129
0130 ... since x86_64 ABI mandates rdi, rsi, rdx, rcx, r8, r9 for argument passing
0131 and rbx, r12 - r15 are callee saved.
0132
0133 Then the following eBPF pseudo-program::
0134
0135 bpf_mov R6, R1 /* save ctx */
0136 bpf_mov R2, 2
0137 bpf_mov R3, 3
0138 bpf_mov R4, 4
0139 bpf_mov R5, 5
0140 bpf_call foo
0141 bpf_mov R7, R0 /* save foo() return value */
0142 bpf_mov R1, R6 /* restore ctx for next call */
0143 bpf_mov R2, 6
0144 bpf_mov R3, 7
0145 bpf_mov R4, 8
0146 bpf_mov R5, 9
0147 bpf_call bar
0148 bpf_add R0, R7
0149 bpf_exit
0150
0151 After JIT to x86_64 may look like::
0152
0153 push %rbp
0154 mov %rsp,%rbp
0155 sub $0x228,%rsp
0156 mov %rbx,-0x228(%rbp)
0157 mov %r13,-0x220(%rbp)
0158 mov %rdi,%rbx
0159 mov $0x2,%esi
0160 mov $0x3,%edx
0161 mov $0x4,%ecx
0162 mov $0x5,%r8d
0163 callq foo
0164 mov %rax,%r13
0165 mov %rbx,%rdi
0166 mov $0x6,%esi
0167 mov $0x7,%edx
0168 mov $0x8,%ecx
0169 mov $0x9,%r8d
0170 callq bar
0171 add %r13,%rax
0172 mov -0x228(%rbp),%rbx
0173 mov -0x220(%rbp),%r13
0174 leaveq
0175 retq
0176
0177 Which is in this example equivalent in C to::
0178
0179 u64 bpf_filter(u64 ctx)
0180 {
0181 return foo(ctx, 2, 3, 4, 5) + bar(ctx, 6, 7, 8, 9);
0182 }
0183
0184 In-kernel functions foo() and bar() with prototype: u64 (*)(u64 arg1, u64
0185 arg2, u64 arg3, u64 arg4, u64 arg5); will receive arguments in proper
0186 registers and place their return value into ``%rax`` which is R0 in eBPF.
0187 Prologue and epilogue are emitted by JIT and are implicit in the
0188 interpreter. R0-R5 are scratch registers, so eBPF program needs to preserve
0189 them across the calls as defined by calling convention.
0190
0191 For example the following program is invalid::
0192
0193 bpf_mov R1, 1
0194 bpf_call foo
0195 bpf_mov R0, R1
0196 bpf_exit
0197
0198 After the call the registers R1-R5 contain junk values and cannot be read.
0199 An in-kernel verifier.rst is used to validate eBPF programs.
0200
0201 Also in the new design, eBPF is limited to 4096 insns, which means that any
0202 program will terminate quickly and will only call a fixed number of kernel
0203 functions. Original BPF and eBPF are two operand instructions,
0204 which helps to do one-to-one mapping between eBPF insn and x86 insn during JIT.
0205
0206 The input context pointer for invoking the interpreter function is generic,
0207 its content is defined by a specific use case. For seccomp register R1 points
0208 to seccomp_data, for converted BPF filters R1 points to a skb.
0209
0210 A program, that is translated internally consists of the following elements::
0211
0212 op:16, jt:8, jf:8, k:32 ==> op:8, dst_reg:4, src_reg:4, off:16, imm:32
0213
0214 So far 87 eBPF instructions were implemented. 8-bit 'op' opcode field
0215 has room for new instructions. Some of them may use 16/24/32 byte encoding. New
0216 instructions must be multiple of 8 bytes to preserve backward compatibility.
0217
0218 eBPF is a general purpose RISC instruction set. Not every register and
0219 every instruction are used during translation from original BPF to eBPF.
0220 For example, socket filters are not using ``exclusive add`` instruction, but
0221 tracing filters may do to maintain counters of events, for example. Register R9
0222 is not used by socket filters either, but more complex filters may be running
0223 out of registers and would have to resort to spill/fill to stack.
0224
0225 eBPF can be used as a generic assembler for last step performance
0226 optimizations, socket filters and seccomp are using it as assembler. Tracing
0227 filters may use it as assembler to generate code from kernel. In kernel usage
0228 may not be bounded by security considerations, since generated eBPF code
0229 may be optimizing internal code path and not being exposed to the user space.
0230 Safety of eBPF can come from the verifier.rst. In such use cases as
0231 described, it may be used as safe instruction set.
0232
0233 Just like the original BPF, eBPF runs within a controlled environment,
0234 is deterministic and the kernel can easily prove that. The safety of the program
0235 can be determined in two steps: first step does depth-first-search to disallow
0236 loops and other CFG validation; second step starts from the first insn and
0237 descends all possible paths. It simulates execution of every insn and observes
0238 the state change of registers and stack.
0239
0240 opcode encoding
0241 ===============
0242
0243 eBPF is reusing most of the opcode encoding from classic to simplify conversion
0244 of classic BPF to eBPF.
0245
0246 For arithmetic and jump instructions the 8-bit 'code' field is divided into three
0247 parts::
0248
0249 +----------------+--------+--------------------+
0250 | 4 bits | 1 bit | 3 bits |
0251 | operation code | source | instruction class |
0252 +----------------+--------+--------------------+
0253 (MSB) (LSB)
0254
0255 Three LSB bits store instruction class which is one of:
0256
0257 =================== ===============
0258 Classic BPF classes eBPF classes
0259 =================== ===============
0260 BPF_LD 0x00 BPF_LD 0x00
0261 BPF_LDX 0x01 BPF_LDX 0x01
0262 BPF_ST 0x02 BPF_ST 0x02
0263 BPF_STX 0x03 BPF_STX 0x03
0264 BPF_ALU 0x04 BPF_ALU 0x04
0265 BPF_JMP 0x05 BPF_JMP 0x05
0266 BPF_RET 0x06 BPF_JMP32 0x06
0267 BPF_MISC 0x07 BPF_ALU64 0x07
0268 =================== ===============
0269
0270 The 4th bit encodes the source operand ...
0271
0272 ::
0273
0274 BPF_K 0x00
0275 BPF_X 0x08
0276
0277 * in classic BPF, this means::
0278
0279 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_X - use register X as source operand
0280 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_K - use 32-bit immediate as source operand
0281
0282 * in eBPF, this means::
0283
0284 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_X - use 'src_reg' register as source operand
0285 BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_K - use 32-bit immediate as source operand
0286
0287 ... and four MSB bits store operation code.
0288
0289 If BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_ALU or BPF_ALU64 [ in eBPF ], BPF_OP(code) is one of::
0290
0291 BPF_ADD 0x00
0292 BPF_SUB 0x10
0293 BPF_MUL 0x20
0294 BPF_DIV 0x30
0295 BPF_OR 0x40
0296 BPF_AND 0x50
0297 BPF_LSH 0x60
0298 BPF_RSH 0x70
0299 BPF_NEG 0x80
0300 BPF_MOD 0x90
0301 BPF_XOR 0xa0
0302 BPF_MOV 0xb0 /* eBPF only: mov reg to reg */
0303 BPF_ARSH 0xc0 /* eBPF only: sign extending shift right */
0304 BPF_END 0xd0 /* eBPF only: endianness conversion */
0305
0306 If BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_JMP or BPF_JMP32 [ in eBPF ], BPF_OP(code) is one of::
0307
0308 BPF_JA 0x00 /* BPF_JMP only */
0309 BPF_JEQ 0x10
0310 BPF_JGT 0x20
0311 BPF_JGE 0x30
0312 BPF_JSET 0x40
0313 BPF_JNE 0x50 /* eBPF only: jump != */
0314 BPF_JSGT 0x60 /* eBPF only: signed '>' */
0315 BPF_JSGE 0x70 /* eBPF only: signed '>=' */
0316 BPF_CALL 0x80 /* eBPF BPF_JMP only: function call */
0317 BPF_EXIT 0x90 /* eBPF BPF_JMP only: function return */
0318 BPF_JLT 0xa0 /* eBPF only: unsigned '<' */
0319 BPF_JLE 0xb0 /* eBPF only: unsigned '<=' */
0320 BPF_JSLT 0xc0 /* eBPF only: signed '<' */
0321 BPF_JSLE 0xd0 /* eBPF only: signed '<=' */
0322
0323 So BPF_ADD | BPF_X | BPF_ALU means 32-bit addition in both classic BPF
0324 and eBPF. There are only two registers in classic BPF, so it means A += X.
0325 In eBPF it means dst_reg = (u32) dst_reg + (u32) src_reg; similarly,
0326 BPF_XOR | BPF_K | BPF_ALU means A ^= imm32 in classic BPF and analogous
0327 src_reg = (u32) src_reg ^ (u32) imm32 in eBPF.
0328
0329 Classic BPF is using BPF_MISC class to represent A = X and X = A moves.
0330 eBPF is using BPF_MOV | BPF_X | BPF_ALU code instead. Since there are no
0331 BPF_MISC operations in eBPF, the class 7 is used as BPF_ALU64 to mean
0332 exactly the same operations as BPF_ALU, but with 64-bit wide operands
0333 instead. So BPF_ADD | BPF_X | BPF_ALU64 means 64-bit addition, i.e.:
0334 dst_reg = dst_reg + src_reg
0335
0336 Classic BPF wastes the whole BPF_RET class to represent a single ``ret``
0337 operation. Classic BPF_RET | BPF_K means copy imm32 into return register
0338 and perform function exit. eBPF is modeled to match CPU, so BPF_JMP | BPF_EXIT
0339 in eBPF means function exit only. The eBPF program needs to store return
0340 value into register R0 before doing a BPF_EXIT. Class 6 in eBPF is used as
0341 BPF_JMP32 to mean exactly the same operations as BPF_JMP, but with 32-bit wide
0342 operands for the comparisons instead.
0343
0344 For load and store instructions the 8-bit 'code' field is divided as::
0345
0346 +--------+--------+-------------------+
0347 | 3 bits | 2 bits | 3 bits |
0348 | mode | size | instruction class |
0349 +--------+--------+-------------------+
0350 (MSB) (LSB)
0351
0352 Size modifier is one of ...
0353
0354 ::
0355
0356 BPF_W 0x00 /* word */
0357 BPF_H 0x08 /* half word */
0358 BPF_B 0x10 /* byte */
0359 BPF_DW 0x18 /* eBPF only, double word */
0360
0361 ... which encodes size of load/store operation::
0362
0363 B - 1 byte
0364 H - 2 byte
0365 W - 4 byte
0366 DW - 8 byte (eBPF only)
0367
0368 Mode modifier is one of::
0369
0370 BPF_IMM 0x00 /* used for 32-bit mov in classic BPF and 64-bit in eBPF */
0371 BPF_ABS 0x20
0372 BPF_IND 0x40
0373 BPF_MEM 0x60
0374 BPF_LEN 0x80 /* classic BPF only, reserved in eBPF */
0375 BPF_MSH 0xa0 /* classic BPF only, reserved in eBPF */
0376 BPF_ATOMIC 0xc0 /* eBPF only, atomic operations */