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Documentation: Describe bpf reference tracking
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Document the new pointer types in the verifier and how the pointer ID
tracking works to ensure that references which are taken are later
released.

Signed-off-by: Joe Stringer <joe@wand.net.nz>
Acked-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
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Joe Stringer authored and Daniel Borkmann committed Oct 3, 2018
1 parent de375f4 commit a610b66
Showing 1 changed file with 64 additions and 0 deletions.
64 changes: 64 additions & 0 deletions Documentation/networking/filter.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -1125,6 +1125,14 @@ pointer type. The types of pointers describe their base, as follows:
PTR_TO_STACK Frame pointer.
PTR_TO_PACKET skb->data.
PTR_TO_PACKET_END skb->data + headlen; arithmetic forbidden.
PTR_TO_SOCKET Pointer to struct bpf_sock_ops, implicitly refcounted.
PTR_TO_SOCKET_OR_NULL
Either a pointer to a socket, or NULL; socket lookup
returns this type, which becomes a PTR_TO_SOCKET when
checked != NULL. PTR_TO_SOCKET is reference-counted,
so programs must release the reference through the
socket release function before the end of the program.
Arithmetic on these pointers is forbidden.
However, a pointer may be offset from this base (as a result of pointer
arithmetic), and this is tracked in two parts: the 'fixed offset' and 'variable
offset'. The former is used when an exactly-known value (e.g. an immediate
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1171,6 +1179,13 @@ over the Ethernet header, then reads IHL and addes (IHL * 4), the resulting
pointer will have a variable offset known to be 4n+2 for some n, so adding the 2
bytes (NET_IP_ALIGN) gives a 4-byte alignment and so word-sized accesses through
that pointer are safe.
The 'id' field is also used on PTR_TO_SOCKET and PTR_TO_SOCKET_OR_NULL, common
to all copies of the pointer returned from a socket lookup. This has similar
behaviour to the handling for PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE_OR_NULL->PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE, but
it also handles reference tracking for the pointer. PTR_TO_SOCKET implicitly
represents a reference to the corresponding 'struct sock'. To ensure that the
reference is not leaked, it is imperative to NULL-check the reference and in
the non-NULL case, and pass the valid reference to the socket release function.

Direct packet access
--------------------
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1444,6 +1459,55 @@ Error:
8: (7a) *(u64 *)(r0 +0) = 1
R0 invalid mem access 'imm'

Program that performs a socket lookup then sets the pointer to NULL without
checking it:
value:
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_2, 0),
BPF_STX_MEM(BPF_W, BPF_REG_10, BPF_REG_2, -8),
BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_3, 4),
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_4, 0),
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_5, 0),
BPF_EMIT_CALL(BPF_FUNC_sk_lookup_tcp),
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_0, 0),
BPF_EXIT_INSN(),
Error:
0: (b7) r2 = 0
1: (63) *(u32 *)(r10 -8) = r2
2: (bf) r2 = r10
3: (07) r2 += -8
4: (b7) r3 = 4
5: (b7) r4 = 0
6: (b7) r5 = 0
7: (85) call bpf_sk_lookup_tcp#65
8: (b7) r0 = 0
9: (95) exit
Unreleased reference id=1, alloc_insn=7

Program that performs a socket lookup but does not NULL-check the returned
value:
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_2, 0),
BPF_STX_MEM(BPF_W, BPF_REG_10, BPF_REG_2, -8),
BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_2, BPF_REG_10),
BPF_ALU64_IMM(BPF_ADD, BPF_REG_2, -8),
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_3, 4),
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_4, 0),
BPF_MOV64_IMM(BPF_REG_5, 0),
BPF_EMIT_CALL(BPF_FUNC_sk_lookup_tcp),
BPF_EXIT_INSN(),
Error:
0: (b7) r2 = 0
1: (63) *(u32 *)(r10 -8) = r2
2: (bf) r2 = r10
3: (07) r2 += -8
4: (b7) r3 = 4
5: (b7) r4 = 0
6: (b7) r5 = 0
7: (85) call bpf_sk_lookup_tcp#65
8: (95) exit
Unreleased reference id=1, alloc_insn=7

Testing
-------

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