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diff --git a/Documentation/bpf/classic_vs_extended.rst b/Documentation/bpf/classic_vs_extended.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2f81a81f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/bpf/classic_vs_extended.rst @@ -0,0 +1,376 @@ + +=================== +Classic BPF vs eBPF +=================== + +eBPF is designed to be JITed with one to one mapping, which can also open up +the possibility for GCC/LLVM compilers to generate optimized eBPF code through +an eBPF backend that performs almost as fast as natively compiled code. + +Some core changes of the eBPF format from classic BPF: + +- Number of registers increase from 2 to 10: + + The old format had two registers A and X, and a hidden frame pointer. The + new layout extends this to be 10 internal registers and a read-only frame + pointer. Since 64-bit CPUs are passing arguments to functions via registers + the number of args from eBPF program to in-kernel function is restricted + to 5 and one register is used to accept return value from an in-kernel + function. Natively, x86_64 passes first 6 arguments in registers, aarch64/ + sparcv9/mips64 have 7 - 8 registers for arguments; x86_64 has 6 callee saved + registers, and aarch64/sparcv9/mips64 have 11 or more callee saved registers. + + Thus, all eBPF registers map one to one to HW registers on x86_64, aarch64, + etc, and eBPF calling convention maps directly to ABIs used by the kernel on + 64-bit architectures. + + On 32-bit architectures JIT may map programs that use only 32-bit arithmetic + and may let more complex programs to be interpreted. + + R0 - R5 are scratch registers and eBPF program needs spill/fill them if + necessary across calls. Note that there is only one eBPF program (== one + eBPF main routine) and it cannot call other eBPF functions, it can only + call predefined in-kernel functions, though. + +- Register width increases from 32-bit to 64-bit: + + Still, the semantics of the original 32-bit ALU operations are preserved + via 32-bit subregisters. All eBPF registers are 64-bit with 32-bit lower + subregisters that zero-extend into 64-bit if they are being written to. + That behavior maps directly to x86_64 and arm64 subregister definition, but + makes other JITs more difficult. + + 32-bit architectures run 64-bit eBPF programs via interpreter. + Their JITs may convert BPF programs that only use 32-bit subregisters into + native instruction set and let the rest being interpreted. + + Operation is 64-bit, because on 64-bit architectures, pointers are also + 64-bit wide, and we want to pass 64-bit values in/out of kernel functions, + so 32-bit eBPF registers would otherwise require to define register-pair + ABI, thus, there won't be able to use a direct eBPF register to HW register + mapping and JIT would need to do combine/split/move operations for every + register in and out of the function, which is complex, bug prone and slow. + Another reason is the use of atomic 64-bit counters. + +- Conditional jt/jf targets replaced with jt/fall-through: + + While the original design has constructs such as ``if (cond) jump_true; + else jump_false;``, they are being replaced into alternative constructs like + ``if (cond) jump_true; /* else fall-through */``. + +- Introduces bpf_call insn and register passing convention for zero overhead + calls from/to other kernel functions: + + Before an in-kernel function call, the eBPF program needs to + place function arguments into R1 to R5 registers to satisfy calling + convention, then the interpreter will take them from registers and pass + to in-kernel function. If R1 - R5 registers are mapped to CPU registers + that are used for argument passing on given architecture, the JIT compiler + doesn't need to emit extra moves. Function arguments will be in the correct + registers and BPF_CALL instruction will be JITed as single 'call' HW + instruction. This calling convention was picked to cover common call + situations without performance penalty. + + After an in-kernel function call, R1 - R5 are reset to unreadable and R0 has + a return value of the function. Since R6 - R9 are callee saved, their state + is preserved across the call. + + For example, consider three C functions:: + + u64 f1() { return (*_f2)(1); } + u64 f2(u64 a) { return f3(a + 1, a); } + u64 f3(u64 a, u64 b) { return a - b; } + + GCC can compile f1, f3 into x86_64:: + + f1: + movl $1, %edi + movq _f2(%rip), %rax + jmp *%rax + f3: + movq %rdi, %rax + subq %rsi, %rax + ret + + Function f2 in eBPF may look like:: + + f2: + bpf_mov R2, R1 + bpf_add R1, 1 + bpf_call f3 + bpf_exit + + If f2 is JITed and the pointer stored to ``_f2``. The calls f1 -> f2 -> f3 and + returns will be seamless. Without JIT, __bpf_prog_run() interpreter needs to + be used to call into f2. + + For practical reasons all eBPF programs have only one argument 'ctx' which is + already placed into R1 (e.g. on __bpf_prog_run() startup) and the programs + can call kernel functions with up to 5 arguments. Calls with 6 or more arguments + are currently not supported, but these restrictions can be lifted if necessary + in the future. + + On 64-bit architectures all register map to HW registers one to one. For + example, x86_64 JIT compiler can map them as ... + + :: + + R0 - rax + R1 - rdi + R2 - rsi + R3 - rdx + R4 - rcx + R5 - r8 + R6 - rbx + R7 - r13 + R8 - r14 + R9 - r15 + R10 - rbp + + ... since x86_64 ABI mandates rdi, rsi, rdx, rcx, r8, r9 for argument passing + and rbx, r12 - r15 are callee saved. + + Then the following eBPF pseudo-program:: + + bpf_mov R6, R1 /* save ctx */ + bpf_mov R2, 2 + bpf_mov R3, 3 + bpf_mov R4, 4 + bpf_mov R5, 5 + bpf_call foo + bpf_mov R7, R0 /* save foo() return value */ + bpf_mov R1, R6 /* restore ctx for next call */ + bpf_mov R2, 6 + bpf_mov R3, 7 + bpf_mov R4, 8 + bpf_mov R5, 9 + bpf_call bar + bpf_add R0, R7 + bpf_exit + + After JIT to x86_64 may look like:: + + push %rbp + mov %rsp,%rbp + sub $0x228,%rsp + mov %rbx,-0x228(%rbp) + mov %r13,-0x220(%rbp) + mov %rdi,%rbx + mov $0x2,%esi + mov $0x3,%edx + mov $0x4,%ecx + mov $0x5,%r8d + callq foo + mov %rax,%r13 + mov %rbx,%rdi + mov $0x6,%esi + mov $0x7,%edx + mov $0x8,%ecx + mov $0x9,%r8d + callq bar + add %r13,%rax + mov -0x228(%rbp),%rbx + mov -0x220(%rbp),%r13 + leaveq + retq + + Which is in this example equivalent in C to:: + + u64 bpf_filter(u64 ctx) + { + return foo(ctx, 2, 3, 4, 5) + bar(ctx, 6, 7, 8, 9); + } + + In-kernel functions foo() and bar() with prototype: u64 (*)(u64 arg1, u64 + arg2, u64 arg3, u64 arg4, u64 arg5); will receive arguments in proper + registers and place their return value into ``%rax`` which is R0 in eBPF. + Prologue and epilogue are emitted by JIT and are implicit in the + interpreter. R0-R5 are scratch registers, so eBPF program needs to preserve + them across the calls as defined by calling convention. + + For example the following program is invalid:: + + bpf_mov R1, 1 + bpf_call foo + bpf_mov R0, R1 + bpf_exit + + After the call the registers R1-R5 contain junk values and cannot be read. + An in-kernel verifier.rst is used to validate eBPF programs. + +Also in the new design, eBPF is limited to 4096 insns, which means that any +program will terminate quickly and will only call a fixed number of kernel +functions. Original BPF and eBPF are two operand instructions, +which helps to do one-to-one mapping between eBPF insn and x86 insn during JIT. + +The input context pointer for invoking the interpreter function is generic, +its content is defined by a specific use case. For seccomp register R1 points +to seccomp_data, for converted BPF filters R1 points to a skb. + +A program, that is translated internally consists of the following elements:: + + op:16, jt:8, jf:8, k:32 ==> op:8, dst_reg:4, src_reg:4, off:16, imm:32 + +So far 87 eBPF instructions were implemented. 8-bit 'op' opcode field +has room for new instructions. Some of them may use 16/24/32 byte encoding. New +instructions must be multiple of 8 bytes to preserve backward compatibility. + +eBPF is a general purpose RISC instruction set. Not every register and +every instruction are used during translation from original BPF to eBPF. +For example, socket filters are not using ``exclusive add`` instruction, but +tracing filters may do to maintain counters of events, for example. Register R9 +is not used by socket filters either, but more complex filters may be running +out of registers and would have to resort to spill/fill to stack. + +eBPF can be used as a generic assembler for last step performance +optimizations, socket filters and seccomp are using it as assembler. Tracing +filters may use it as assembler to generate code from kernel. In kernel usage +may not be bounded by security considerations, since generated eBPF code +may be optimizing internal code path and not being exposed to the user space. +Safety of eBPF can come from the verifier.rst. In such use cases as +described, it may be used as safe instruction set. + +Just like the original BPF, eBPF runs within a controlled environment, +is deterministic and the kernel can easily prove that. The safety of the program +can be determined in two steps: first step does depth-first-search to disallow +loops and other CFG validation; second step starts from the first insn and +descends all possible paths. It simulates execution of every insn and observes +the state change of registers and stack. + +opcode encoding +=============== + +eBPF is reusing most of the opcode encoding from classic to simplify conversion +of classic BPF to eBPF. + +For arithmetic and jump instructions the 8-bit 'code' field is divided into three +parts:: + + +----------------+--------+--------------------+ + | 4 bits | 1 bit | 3 bits | + | operation code | source | instruction class | + +----------------+--------+--------------------+ + (MSB) (LSB) + +Three LSB bits store instruction class which is one of: + + =================== =============== + Classic BPF classes eBPF classes + =================== =============== + BPF_LD 0x00 BPF_LD 0x00 + BPF_LDX 0x01 BPF_LDX 0x01 + BPF_ST 0x02 BPF_ST 0x02 + BPF_STX 0x03 BPF_STX 0x03 + BPF_ALU 0x04 BPF_ALU 0x04 + BPF_JMP 0x05 BPF_JMP 0x05 + BPF_RET 0x06 BPF_JMP32 0x06 + BPF_MISC 0x07 BPF_ALU64 0x07 + =================== =============== + +The 4th bit encodes the source operand ... + + :: + + BPF_K 0x00 + BPF_X 0x08 + + * in classic BPF, this means:: + + BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_X - use register X as source operand + BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_K - use 32-bit immediate as source operand + + * in eBPF, this means:: + + BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_X - use 'src_reg' register as source operand + BPF_SRC(code) == BPF_K - use 32-bit immediate as source operand + +... and four MSB bits store operation code. + +If BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_ALU or BPF_ALU64 [ in eBPF ], BPF_OP(code) is one of:: + + BPF_ADD 0x00 + BPF_SUB 0x10 + BPF_MUL 0x20 + BPF_DIV 0x30 + BPF_OR 0x40 + BPF_AND 0x50 + BPF_LSH 0x60 + BPF_RSH 0x70 + BPF_NEG 0x80 + BPF_MOD 0x90 + BPF_XOR 0xa0 + BPF_MOV 0xb0 /* eBPF only: mov reg to reg */ + BPF_ARSH 0xc0 /* eBPF only: sign extending shift right */ + BPF_END 0xd0 /* eBPF only: endianness conversion */ + +If BPF_CLASS(code) == BPF_JMP or BPF_JMP32 [ in eBPF ], BPF_OP(code) is one of:: + + BPF_JA 0x00 /* BPF_JMP only */ + BPF_JEQ 0x10 + BPF_JGT 0x20 + BPF_JGE 0x30 + BPF_JSET 0x40 + BPF_JNE 0x50 /* eBPF only: jump != */ + BPF_JSGT 0x60 /* eBPF only: signed '>' */ + BPF_JSGE 0x70 /* eBPF only: signed '>=' */ + BPF_CALL 0x80 /* eBPF BPF_JMP only: function call */ + BPF_EXIT 0x90 /* eBPF BPF_JMP only: function return */ + BPF_JLT 0xa0 /* eBPF only: unsigned '<' */ + BPF_JLE 0xb0 /* eBPF only: unsigned '<=' */ + BPF_JSLT 0xc0 /* eBPF only: signed '<' */ + BPF_JSLE 0xd0 /* eBPF only: signed '<=' */ + +So BPF_ADD | BPF_X | BPF_ALU means 32-bit addition in both classic BPF +and eBPF. There are only two registers in classic BPF, so it means A += X. +In eBPF it means dst_reg = (u32) dst_reg + (u32) src_reg; similarly, +BPF_XOR | BPF_K | BPF_ALU means A ^= imm32 in classic BPF and analogous +src_reg = (u32) src_reg ^ (u32) imm32 in eBPF. + +Classic BPF is using BPF_MISC class to represent A = X and X = A moves. +eBPF is using BPF_MOV | BPF_X | BPF_ALU code instead. Since there are no +BPF_MISC operations in eBPF, the class 7 is used as BPF_ALU64 to mean +exactly the same operations as BPF_ALU, but with 64-bit wide operands +instead. So BPF_ADD | BPF_X | BPF_ALU64 means 64-bit addition, i.e.: +dst_reg = dst_reg + src_reg + +Classic BPF wastes the whole BPF_RET class to represent a single ``ret`` +operation. Classic BPF_RET | BPF_K means copy imm32 into return register +and perform function exit. eBPF is modeled to match CPU, so BPF_JMP | BPF_EXIT +in eBPF means function exit only. The eBPF program needs to store return +value into register R0 before doing a BPF_EXIT. Class 6 in eBPF is used as +BPF_JMP32 to mean exactly the same operations as BPF_JMP, but with 32-bit wide +operands for the comparisons instead. + +For load and store instructions the 8-bit 'code' field is divided as:: + + +--------+--------+-------------------+ + | 3 bits | 2 bits | 3 bits | + | mode | size | instruction class | + +--------+--------+-------------------+ + (MSB) (LSB) + +Size modifier is one of ... + +:: + + BPF_W 0x00 /* word */ + BPF_H 0x08 /* half word */ + BPF_B 0x10 /* byte */ + BPF_DW 0x18 /* eBPF only, double word */ + +... which encodes size of load/store operation:: + + B - 1 byte + H - 2 byte + W - 4 byte + DW - 8 byte (eBPF only) + +Mode modifier is one of:: + + BPF_IMM 0x00 /* used for 32-bit mov in classic BPF and 64-bit in eBPF */ + BPF_ABS 0x20 + BPF_IND 0x40 + BPF_MEM 0x60 + BPF_LEN 0x80 /* classic BPF only, reserved in eBPF */ + BPF_MSH 0xa0 /* classic BPF only, reserved in eBPF */ + BPF_ATOMIC 0xc0 /* eBPF only, atomic operations */ |