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BPF-HELPERS(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual BPF-HELPERS(7)

NAME

BPF-HELPERS - list of eBPF helper functions

DESCRIPTION

The extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) subsystem consists in programs written in a pseudo-assembly language, then attached to one of the several kernel hooks and run in reaction of specific events. This framework differs from the older, "classic" BPF (or "cBPF") in several aspects, one of them being the ability to call special functions (or "helpers") from within a program. These functions are restricted to a white-list of helpers defined in the kernel.

These helpers are used by eBPF programs to interact with the system, or with the context in which they work. For instance, they can be used to print debugging messages, to get the time since the system was booted, to interact with eBPF maps, or to manipulate network packets. Since there are several eBPF program types, and that they do not run in the same context, each program type can only call a subset of those helpers.

Due to eBPF conventions, a helper can not have more than five arguments.

Internally, eBPF programs call directly into the compiled helper functions without requiring any foreign-function interface. As a result, calling helpers introduces no overhead, thus offering excellent performance.

This document is an attempt to list and document the helpers available to eBPF developers. They are sorted by chronological order (the oldest helpers in the kernel at the top).

HELPERS

Perform a lookup in map for an entry associated to key.
Map value associated to key, or NULL if no entry was found.

Add or update the value of the entry associated to key in map with value. flags is one of:
The entry for key must not exist in the map.
The entry for key must already exist in the map.
No condition on the existence of the entry for key.

Flag value BPF_NOEXIST cannot be used for maps of types BPF_MAP_TYPE_ARRAY or BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERCPU_ARRAY (all elements always exist), the helper would return an error.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Delete entry with key from map.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

For tracing programs, safely attempt to read size bytes from kernel space address unsafe_ptr and store the data in dst.

Generally, use bpf_probe_read_user() or bpf_probe_read_kernel() instead.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Return the time elapsed since system boot, in nanoseconds. Does not include time the system was suspended. See: clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC)
Current ktime.

This helper is a "printk()-like" facility for debugging. It prints a message defined by format fmt (of size fmt_size) to file /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace from DebugFS, if available. It can take up to three additional u64 arguments (as an eBPF helpers, the total number of arguments is limited to five).

Each time the helper is called, it appends a line to the trace. Lines are discarded while /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace is open, use /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_pipe to avoid this. The format of the trace is customizable, and the exact output one will get depends on the options set in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_options (see also the README file under the same directory). However, it usually defaults to something like:

telnet-470   [001] .N.. 419421.045894: 0x00000001: <fmt>


In the above:

  • telnet is the name of the current task.
  • 470 is the PID of the current task.
  • 001 is the CPU number on which the task is running.
  • In .N.., each character refers to a set of options (whether irqs are enabled, scheduling options, whether hard/softirqs are running, level of preempt_disabled respectively). N means that TIF_NEED_RESCHED and PREEMPT_NEED_RESCHED are set.
  • 419421.045894 is a timestamp.
  • 0x00000001 is a fake value used by BPF for the instruction pointer register.
  • <fmt> is the message formatted with fmt.



The conversion specifiers supported by fmt are similar, but more limited than for printk(). They are %d, %i, %u, %x, %ld, %li, %lu, %lx, %lld, %lli, %llu, %llx, %p, %s. No modifier (size of field, padding with zeroes, etc.) is available, and the helper will return -EINVAL (but print nothing) if it encounters an unknown specifier.

Also, note that bpf_trace_printk() is slow, and should only be used for debugging purposes. For this reason, a notice block (spanning several lines) is printed to kernel logs and states that the helper should not be used "for production use" the first time this helper is used (or more precisely, when trace_printk() buffers are allocated). For passing values to user space, perf events should be preferred.

The number of bytes written to the buffer, or a negative error in case of failure.

Get a pseudo-random number.

From a security point of view, this helper uses its own pseudo-random internal state, and cannot be used to infer the seed of other random functions in the kernel. However, it is essential to note that the generator used by the helper is not cryptographically secure.

A random 32-bit unsigned value.

Get the SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) processor id. Note that all programs run with migration disabled, which means that the SMP processor id is stable during all the execution of the program.
The SMP id of the processor running the program.

Store len bytes from address from into the packet associated to skb, at offset. flags are a combination of BPF_F_RECOMPUTE_CSUM (automatically recompute the checksum for the packet after storing the bytes) and BPF_F_INVALIDATE_HASH (set skb->hash, skb->swhash and skb->l4hash to 0).

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Recompute the layer 3 (e.g. IP) checksum for the packet associated to skb. Computation is incremental, so the helper must know the former value of the header field that was modified (from), the new value of this field (to), and the number of bytes (2 or 4) for this field, stored in size. Alternatively, it is possible to store the difference between the previous and the new values of the header field in to, by setting from and size to 0. For both methods, offset indicates the location of the IP checksum within the packet.

This helper works in combination with bpf_csum_diff(), which does not update the checksum in-place, but offers more flexibility and can handle sizes larger than 2 or 4 for the checksum to update.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Recompute the layer 4 (e.g. TCP, UDP or ICMP) checksum for the packet associated to skb. Computation is incremental, so the helper must know the former value of the header field that was modified (from), the new value of this field (to), and the number of bytes (2 or 4) for this field, stored on the lowest four bits of flags. Alternatively, it is possible to store the difference between the previous and the new values of the header field in to, by setting from and the four lowest bits of flags to 0. For both methods, offset indicates the location of the IP checksum within the packet. In addition to the size of the field, flags can be added (bitwise OR) actual flags. With BPF_F_MARK_MANGLED_0, a null checksum is left untouched (unless BPF_F_MARK_ENFORCE is added as well), and for updates resulting in a null checksum the value is set to CSUM_MANGLED_0 instead. Flag BPF_F_PSEUDO_HDR indicates the checksum is to be computed against a pseudo-header.

This helper works in combination with bpf_csum_diff(), which does not update the checksum in-place, but offers more flexibility and can handle sizes larger than 2 or 4 for the checksum to update.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

This special helper is used to trigger a "tail call", or in other words, to jump into another eBPF program. The same stack frame is used (but values on stack and in registers for the caller are not accessible to the callee). This mechanism allows for program chaining, either for raising the maximum number of available eBPF instructions, or to execute given programs in conditional blocks. For security reasons, there is an upper limit to the number of successive tail calls that can be performed.

Upon call of this helper, the program attempts to jump into a program referenced at index index in prog_array_map, a special map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_PROG_ARRAY, and passes ctx, a pointer to the context.

If the call succeeds, the kernel immediately runs the first instruction of the new program. This is not a function call, and it never returns to the previous program. If the call fails, then the helper has no effect, and the caller continues to run its subsequent instructions. A call can fail if the destination program for the jump does not exist (i.e. index is superior to the number of entries in prog_array_map), or if the maximum number of tail calls has been reached for this chain of programs. This limit is defined in the kernel by the macro MAX_TAIL_CALL_CNT (not accessible to user space), which is currently set to 33.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Clone and redirect the packet associated to skb to another net device of index ifindex. Both ingress and egress interfaces can be used for redirection. The BPF_F_INGRESS value in flags is used to make the distinction (ingress path is selected if the flag is present, egress path otherwise). This is the only flag supported for now.

In comparison with bpf_redirect() helper, bpf_clone_redirect() has the associated cost of duplicating the packet buffer, but this can be executed out of the eBPF program. Conversely, bpf_redirect() is more efficient, but it is handled through an action code where the redirection happens only after the eBPF program has returned.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Get the current pid and tgid.
A 64-bit integer containing the current tgid and pid, and created as such: current_task->tgid << 32 | current_task->pid.

Get the current uid and gid.
A 64-bit integer containing the current GID and UID, and created as such: current_gid << 32 | current_uid.

Copy the comm attribute of the current task into buf of size_of_buf. The comm attribute contains the name of the executable (excluding the path) for the current task. The size_of_buf must be strictly positive. On success, the helper makes sure that the buf is NUL-terminated. On failure, it is filled with zeroes.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Retrieve the classid for the current task, i.e. for the net_cls cgroup to which skb belongs.

This helper can be used on TC egress path, but not on ingress.

The net_cls cgroup provides an interface to tag network packets based on a user-provided identifier for all traffic coming from the tasks belonging to the related cgroup. See also the related kernel documentation, available from the Linux sources in file Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v1/net_cls.rst.

The Linux kernel has two versions for cgroups: there are cgroups v1 and cgroups v2. Both are available to users, who can use a mixture of them, but note that the net_cls cgroup is for cgroup v1 only. This makes it incompatible with BPF programs run on cgroups, which is a cgroup-v2-only feature (a socket can only hold data for one version of cgroups at a time).

This helper is only available is the kernel was compiled with the CONFIG_CGROUP_NET_CLASSID configuration option set to "y" or to "m".

The classid, or 0 for the default unconfigured classid.

Push a vlan_tci (VLAN tag control information) of protocol vlan_proto to the packet associated to skb, then update the checksum. Note that if vlan_proto is different from ETH_P_8021Q and ETH_P_8021AD, it is considered to be ETH_P_8021Q.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Pop a VLAN header from the packet associated to skb.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Get tunnel metadata. This helper takes a pointer key to an empty struct bpf_tunnel_key of size, that will be filled with tunnel metadata for the packet associated to skb. The flags can be set to BPF_F_TUNINFO_IPV6, which indicates that the tunnel is based on IPv6 protocol instead of IPv4.

The struct bpf_tunnel_key is an object that generalizes the principal parameters used by various tunneling protocols into a single struct. This way, it can be used to easily make a decision based on the contents of the encapsulation header, "summarized" in this struct. In particular, it holds the IP address of the remote end (IPv4 or IPv6, depending on the case) in key->remote_ipv4 or key->remote_ipv6. Also, this struct exposes the key->tunnel_id, which is generally mapped to a VNI (Virtual Network Identifier), making it programmable together with the bpf_skb_set_tunnel_key() helper.

Let's imagine that the following code is part of a program attached to the TC ingress interface, on one end of a GRE tunnel, and is supposed to filter out all messages coming from remote ends with IPv4 address other than 10.0.0.1:

int ret;
struct bpf_tunnel_key key = {};
ret = bpf_skb_get_tunnel_key(skb, &key, sizeof(key), 0);
if (ret < 0)

return TC_ACT_SHOT; // drop packet if (key.remote_ipv4 != 0x0a000001)
return TC_ACT_SHOT; // drop packet return TC_ACT_OK; // accept packet


This interface can also be used with all encapsulation devices that can operate in "collect metadata" mode: instead of having one network device per specific configuration, the "collect metadata" mode only requires a single device where the configuration can be extracted from this helper.

This can be used together with various tunnels such as VXLan, Geneve, GRE or IP in IP (IPIP).

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Populate tunnel metadata for packet associated to skb. The tunnel metadata is set to the contents of key, of size. The flags can be set to a combination of the following values:
Indicate that the tunnel is based on IPv6 protocol instead of IPv4.
For IPv4 packets, add a flag to tunnel metadata indicating that checksum computation should be skipped and checksum set to zeroes.
Add a flag to tunnel metadata indicating that the packet should not be fragmented.
Add a flag to tunnel metadata indicating that a sequence number should be added to tunnel header before sending the packet. This flag was added for GRE encapsulation, but might be used with other protocols as well in the future.

Here is a typical usage on the transmit path:

struct bpf_tunnel_key key;

populate key ... bpf_skb_set_tunnel_key(skb, &key, sizeof(key), 0); bpf_clone_redirect(skb, vxlan_dev_ifindex, 0);


See also the description of the bpf_skb_get_tunnel_key() helper for additional information.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Read the value of a perf event counter. This helper relies on a map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERF_EVENT_ARRAY. The nature of the perf event counter is selected when map is updated with perf event file descriptors. The map is an array whose size is the number of available CPUs, and each cell contains a value relative to one CPU. The value to retrieve is indicated by flags, that contains the index of the CPU to look up, masked with BPF_F_INDEX_MASK. Alternatively, flags can be set to BPF_F_CURRENT_CPU to indicate that the value for the current CPU should be retrieved.

Note that before Linux 4.13, only hardware perf event can be retrieved.

Also, be aware that the newer helper bpf_perf_event_read_value() is recommended over bpf_perf_event_read() in general. The latter has some ABI quirks where error and counter value are used as a return code (which is wrong to do since ranges may overlap). This issue is fixed with bpf_perf_event_read_value(), which at the same time provides more features over the bpf_perf_event_read() interface. Please refer to the description of bpf_perf_event_read_value() for details.

The value of the perf event counter read from the map, or a negative error code in case of failure.

Redirect the packet to another net device of index ifindex. This helper is somewhat similar to bpf_clone_redirect(), except that the packet is not cloned, which provides increased performance.

Except for XDP, both ingress and egress interfaces can be used for redirection. The BPF_F_INGRESS value in flags is used to make the distinction (ingress path is selected if the flag is present, egress path otherwise). Currently, XDP only supports redirection to the egress interface, and accepts no flag at all.

The same effect can also be attained with the more generic bpf_redirect_map(), which uses a BPF map to store the redirect target instead of providing it directly to the helper.

For XDP, the helper returns XDP_REDIRECT on success or XDP_ABORTED on error. For other program types, the values are TC_ACT_REDIRECT on success or TC_ACT_SHOT on error.

Retrieve the realm or the route, that is to say the tclassid field of the destination for the skb. The identifier retrieved is a user-provided tag, similar to the one used with the net_cls cgroup (see description for bpf_get_cgroup_classid() helper), but here this tag is held by a route (a destination entry), not by a task.

Retrieving this identifier works with the clsact TC egress hook (see also tc-bpf(8)), or alternatively on conventional classful egress qdiscs, but not on TC ingress path. In case of clsact TC egress hook, this has the advantage that, internally, the destination entry has not been dropped yet in the transmit path. Therefore, the destination entry does not need to be artificially held via netif_keep_dst() for a classful qdisc until the skb is freed.

This helper is available only if the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_CLASSID configuration option.

The realm of the route for the packet associated to skb, or 0 if none was found.

Write raw data blob into a special BPF perf event held by map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERF_EVENT_ARRAY. This perf event must have the following attributes: PERF_SAMPLE_RAW as sample_type, PERF_TYPE_SOFTWARE as type, and PERF_COUNT_SW_BPF_OUTPUT as config.

The flags are used to indicate the index in map for which the value must be put, masked with BPF_F_INDEX_MASK. Alternatively, flags can be set to BPF_F_CURRENT_CPU to indicate that the index of the current CPU core should be used.

The value to write, of size, is passed through eBPF stack and pointed by data.

The context of the program ctx needs also be passed to the helper.

On user space, a program willing to read the values needs to call perf_event_open() on the perf event (either for one or for all CPUs) and to store the file descriptor into the map. This must be done before the eBPF program can send data into it. An example is available in file samples/bpf/trace_output_user.c in the Linux kernel source tree (the eBPF program counterpart is in samples/bpf/trace_output_kern.c).

bpf_perf_event_output() achieves better performance than bpf_trace_printk() for sharing data with user space, and is much better suitable for streaming data from eBPF programs.

Note that this helper is not restricted to tracing use cases and can be used with programs attached to TC or XDP as well, where it allows for passing data to user space listeners. Data can be:

  • Only custom structs,
  • Only the packet payload, or
  • A combination of both.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

This helper was provided as an easy way to load data from a packet. It can be used to load len bytes from offset from the packet associated to skb, into the buffer pointed by to.

Since Linux 4.7, usage of this helper has mostly been replaced by "direct packet access", enabling packet data to be manipulated with skb->data and skb->data_end pointing respectively to the first byte of packet data and to the byte after the last byte of packet data. However, it remains useful if one wishes to read large quantities of data at once from a packet into the eBPF stack.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Walk a user or a kernel stack and return its id. To achieve this, the helper needs ctx, which is a pointer to the context on which the tracing program is executed, and a pointer to a map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_STACK_TRACE.

The last argument, flags, holds the number of stack frames to skip (from 0 to 255), masked with BPF_F_SKIP_FIELD_MASK. The next bits can be used to set a combination of the following flags:

Collect a user space stack instead of a kernel stack.
Compare stacks by hash only.
If two different stacks hash into the same stackid, discard the old one.

The stack id retrieved is a 32 bit long integer handle which can be further combined with other data (including other stack ids) and used as a key into maps. This can be useful for generating a variety of graphs (such as flame graphs or off-cpu graphs).

For walking a stack, this helper is an improvement over bpf_probe_read(), which can be used with unrolled loops but is not efficient and consumes a lot of eBPF instructions. Instead, bpf_get_stackid() can collect up to PERF_MAX_STACK_DEPTH both kernel and user frames. Note that this limit can be controlled with the sysctl program, and that it should be manually increased in order to profile long user stacks (such as stacks for Java programs). To do so, use:

# sysctl kernel.perf_event_max_stack=<new value>


The positive or null stack id on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Compute a checksum difference, from the raw buffer pointed by from, of length from_size (that must be a multiple of 4), towards the raw buffer pointed by to, of size to_size (same remark). An optional seed can be added to the value (this can be cascaded, the seed may come from a previous call to the helper).

This is flexible enough to be used in several ways:

  • With from_size == 0, to_size > 0 and seed set to checksum, it can be used when pushing new data.
  • With from_size > 0, to_size == 0 and seed set to checksum, it can be used when removing data from a packet.
  • With from_size > 0, to_size > 0 and seed set to 0, it can be used to compute a diff. Note that from_size and to_size do not need to be equal.

This helper can be used in combination with bpf_l3_csum_replace() and bpf_l4_csum_replace(), to which one can feed in the difference computed with bpf_csum_diff().

The checksum result, or a negative error code in case of failure.

Retrieve tunnel options metadata for the packet associated to skb, and store the raw tunnel option data to the buffer opt of size.

This helper can be used with encapsulation devices that can operate in "collect metadata" mode (please refer to the related note in the description of bpf_skb_get_tunnel_key() for more details). A particular example where this can be used is in combination with the Geneve encapsulation protocol, where it allows for pushing (with bpf_skb_get_tunnel_opt() helper) and retrieving arbitrary TLVs (Type-Length-Value headers) from the eBPF program. This allows for full customization of these headers.

The size of the option data retrieved.

Set tunnel options metadata for the packet associated to skb to the option data contained in the raw buffer opt of size.

See also the description of the bpf_skb_get_tunnel_opt() helper for additional information.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Change the protocol of the skb to proto. Currently supported are transition from IPv4 to IPv6, and from IPv6 to IPv4. The helper takes care of the groundwork for the transition, including resizing the socket buffer. The eBPF program is expected to fill the new headers, if any, via skb_store_bytes() and to recompute the checksums with bpf_l3_csum_replace() and bpf_l4_csum_replace(). The main case for this helper is to perform NAT64 operations out of an eBPF program.

Internally, the GSO type is marked as dodgy so that headers are checked and segments are recalculated by the GSO/GRO engine. The size for GSO target is adapted as well.

All values for flags are reserved for future usage, and must be left at zero.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Change the packet type for the packet associated to skb. This comes down to setting skb->pkt_type to type, except the eBPF program does not have a write access to skb->pkt_type beside this helper. Using a helper here allows for graceful handling of errors.

The major use case is to change incoming skb*s to **PACKET_HOST* in a programmatic way instead of having to recirculate via redirect(..., BPF_F_INGRESS), for example.

Note that type only allows certain values. At this time, they are:

Packet is for us.
Send packet to all.
Send packet to group.
Send packet to someone else.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Check whether skb is a descendant of the cgroup2 held by map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_CGROUP_ARRAY, at index.
The return value depends on the result of the test, and can be:
  • 0, if the skb failed the cgroup2 descendant test.
  • 1, if the skb succeeded the cgroup2 descendant test.
  • A negative error code, if an error occurred.


Retrieve the hash of the packet, skb->hash. If it is not set, in particular if the hash was cleared due to mangling, recompute this hash. Later accesses to the hash can be done directly with skb->hash.

Calling bpf_set_hash_invalid(), changing a packet prototype with bpf_skb_change_proto(), or calling bpf_skb_store_bytes() with the BPF_F_INVALIDATE_HASH are actions susceptible to clear the hash and to trigger a new computation for the next call to bpf_get_hash_recalc().

The 32-bit hash.

Get the current task.
A pointer to the current task struct.

Attempt in a safe way to write len bytes from the buffer src to dst in memory. It only works for threads that are in user context, and dst must be a valid user space address.

This helper should not be used to implement any kind of security mechanism because of TOC-TOU attacks, but rather to debug, divert, and manipulate execution of semi-cooperative processes.

Keep in mind that this feature is meant for experiments, and it has a risk of crashing the system and running programs. Therefore, when an eBPF program using this helper is attached, a warning including PID and process name is printed to kernel logs.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Check whether the probe is being run is the context of a given subset of the cgroup2 hierarchy. The cgroup2 to test is held by map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_CGROUP_ARRAY, at index.
The return value depends on the result of the test, and can be:
  • 1, if current task belongs to the cgroup2.
  • 0, if current task does not belong to the cgroup2.
  • A negative error code, if an error occurred.


Resize (trim or grow) the packet associated to skb to the new len. The flags are reserved for future usage, and must be left at zero.

The basic idea is that the helper performs the needed work to change the size of the packet, then the eBPF program rewrites the rest via helpers like bpf_skb_store_bytes(), bpf_l3_csum_replace(), bpf_l3_csum_replace() and others. This helper is a slow path utility intended for replies with control messages. And because it is targeted for slow path, the helper itself can afford to be slow: it implicitly linearizes, unclones and drops offloads from the skb.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Pull in non-linear data in case the skb is non-linear and not all of len are part of the linear section. Make len bytes from skb readable and writable. If a zero value is passed for len, then all bytes in the linear part of skb will be made readable and writable.

This helper is only needed for reading and writing with direct packet access.

For direct packet access, testing that offsets to access are within packet boundaries (test on skb->data_end) is susceptible to fail if offsets are invalid, or if the requested data is in non-linear parts of the skb. On failure the program can just bail out, or in the case of a non-linear buffer, use a helper to make the data available. The bpf_skb_load_bytes() helper is a first solution to access the data. Another one consists in using bpf_skb_pull_data to pull in once the non-linear parts, then retesting and eventually access the data.

At the same time, this also makes sure the skb is uncloned, which is a necessary condition for direct write. As this needs to be an invariant for the write part only, the verifier detects writes and adds a prologue that is calling bpf_skb_pull_data() to effectively unclone the skb from the very beginning in case it is indeed cloned.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Add the checksum csum into skb->csum in case the driver has supplied a checksum for the entire packet into that field. Return an error otherwise. This helper is intended to be used in combination with bpf_csum_diff(), in particular when the checksum needs to be updated after data has been written into the packet through direct packet access.
The checksum on success, or a negative error code in case of failure.

Invalidate the current skb->hash. It can be used after mangling on headers through direct packet access, in order to indicate that the hash is outdated and to trigger a recalculation the next time the kernel tries to access this hash or when the bpf_get_hash_recalc() helper is called.
void.

Return the id of the current NUMA node. The primary use case for this helper is the selection of sockets for the local NUMA node, when the program is attached to sockets using the SO_ATTACH_REUSEPORT_EBPF option (see also socket(7)), but the helper is also available to other eBPF program types, similarly to bpf_get_smp_processor_id().
The id of current NUMA node.

Grows headroom of packet associated to skb and adjusts the offset of the MAC header accordingly, adding len bytes of space. It automatically extends and reallocates memory as required.

This helper can be used on a layer 3 skb to push a MAC header for redirection into a layer 2 device.

All values for flags are reserved for future usage, and must be left at zero.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Adjust (move) xdp_md->data by delta bytes. Note that it is possible to use a negative value for delta. This helper can be used to prepare the packet for pushing or popping headers.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Copy a NUL terminated string from an unsafe kernel address unsafe_ptr to dst. See bpf_probe_read_kernel_str() for more details.

Generally, use bpf_probe_read_user_str() or bpf_probe_read_kernel_str() instead.

On success, the strictly positive length of the string, including the trailing NUL character. On error, a negative value.

If the struct sk_buff pointed by skb has a known socket, retrieve the cookie (generated by the kernel) of this socket. If no cookie has been set yet, generate a new cookie. Once generated, the socket cookie remains stable for the life of the socket. This helper can be useful for monitoring per socket networking traffic statistics as it provides a global socket identifier that can be assumed unique.
A 8-byte long unique number on success, or 0 if the socket field is missing inside skb.

Equivalent to bpf_get_socket_cookie() helper that accepts skb, but gets socket from struct bpf_sock_addr context.
A 8-byte long unique number.

Equivalent to bpf_get_socket_cookie() helper that accepts skb, but gets socket from struct bpf_sock_ops context.
A 8-byte long unique number.

Equivalent to bpf_get_socket_cookie() helper that accepts sk, but gets socket from a BTF struct sock. This helper also works for sleepable programs.
A 8-byte long unique number or 0 if sk is NULL.

Get the owner UID of the socked associated to skb.
The owner UID of the socket associated to skb. If the socket is NULL, or if it is not a full socket (i.e. if it is a time-wait or a request socket instead), overflowuid value is returned (note that overflowuid might also be the actual UID value for the socket).

Set the full hash for skb (set the field skb->hash) to value hash.
0

Emulate a call to setsockopt() on the socket associated to bpf_socket, which must be a full socket. The level at which the option resides and the name optname of the option must be specified, see setsockopt(2) for more information. The option value of length optlen is pointed by optval.

bpf_socket should be one of the following:

  • struct bpf_sock_ops for BPF_PROG_TYPE_SOCK_OPS.
  • struct bpf_sock_addr for BPF_CGROUP_INET4_CONNECT and BPF_CGROUP_INET6_CONNECT.

This helper actually implements a subset of setsockopt(). It supports the following levels:

  • SOL_SOCKET, which supports the following optnames: SO_RCVBUF, SO_SNDBUF, SO_MAX_PACING_RATE, SO_PRIORITY, SO_RCVLOWAT, SO_MARK, SO_BINDTODEVICE, SO_KEEPALIVE, SO_REUSEADDR, SO_REUSEPORT, SO_BINDTOIFINDEX, SO_TXREHASH.
  • IPPROTO_TCP, which supports the following optnames: TCP_CONGESTION, TCP_BPF_IW, TCP_BPF_SNDCWND_CLAMP, TCP_SAVE_SYN, TCP_KEEPIDLE, TCP_KEEPINTVL, TCP_KEEPCNT, TCP_SYNCNT, TCP_USER_TIMEOUT, TCP_NOTSENT_LOWAT, TCP_NODELAY, TCP_MAXSEG, TCP_WINDOW_CLAMP, TCP_THIN_LINEAR_TIMEOUTS, TCP_BPF_DELACK_MAX, TCP_BPF_RTO_MIN.
  • IPPROTO_IP, which supports optname IP_TOS.
  • IPPROTO_IPV6, which supports the following optnames: IPV6_TCLASS, IPV6_AUTOFLOWLABEL.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Grow or shrink the room for data in the packet associated to skb by len_diff, and according to the selected mode.

By default, the helper will reset any offloaded checksum indicator of the skb to CHECKSUM_NONE. This can be avoided by the following flag:

BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_NO_CSUM_RESET: Do not reset offloaded checksum data of the skb to CHECKSUM_NONE.

There are two supported modes at this time:

  • BPF_ADJ_ROOM_MAC: Adjust room at the mac layer (room space is added or removed between the layer 2 and layer 3 headers).
  • BPF_ADJ_ROOM_NET: Adjust room at the network layer (room space is added or removed between the layer 3 and layer 4 headers).

The following flags are supported at this time:

  • BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_FIXED_GSO: Do not adjust gso_size. Adjusting mss in this way is not allowed for datagrams.
  • BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_ENCAP_L3_IPV4, BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_ENCAP_L3_IPV6: Any new space is reserved to hold a tunnel header. Configure skb offsets and other fields accordingly.
  • BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_ENCAP_L4_GRE, BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_ENCAP_L4_UDP: Use with ENCAP_L3 flags to further specify the tunnel type.
  • BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_ENCAP_L2(len): Use with ENCAP_L3/L4 flags to further specify the tunnel type; len is the length of the inner MAC header.
  • BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_ENCAP_L2_ETH: Use with BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_ENCAP_L2 flag to further specify the L2 type as Ethernet.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Redirect the packet to the endpoint referenced by map at index key. Depending on its type, this map can contain references to net devices (for forwarding packets through other ports), or to CPUs (for redirecting XDP frames to another CPU; but this is only implemented for native XDP (with driver support) as of this writing).

The lower two bits of flags are used as the return code if the map lookup fails. This is so that the return value can be one of the XDP program return codes up to XDP_TX, as chosen by the caller. The higher bits of flags can be set to BPF_F_BROADCAST or BPF_F_EXCLUDE_INGRESS as defined below.

With BPF_F_BROADCAST the packet will be broadcasted to all the interfaces in the map, with BPF_F_EXCLUDE_INGRESS the ingress interface will be excluded when do broadcasting.

See also bpf_redirect(), which only supports redirecting to an ifindex, but doesn't require a map to do so.

XDP_REDIRECT on success, or the value of the two lower bits of the flags argument on error.

Redirect the packet to the socket referenced by map (of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_SOCKMAP) at index key. Both ingress and egress interfaces can be used for redirection. The BPF_F_INGRESS value in flags is used to make the distinction (ingress path is selected if the flag is present, egress path otherwise). This is the only flag supported for now.
SK_PASS on success, or SK_DROP on error.

Add an entry to, or update a map referencing sockets. The skops is used as a new value for the entry associated to key. flags is one of:
The entry for key must not exist in the map.
The entry for key must already exist in the map.
No condition on the existence of the entry for key.

If the map has eBPF programs (parser and verdict), those will be inherited by the socket being added. If the socket is already attached to eBPF programs, this results in an error.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Adjust the address pointed by xdp_md->data_meta by delta (which can be positive or negative). Note that this operation modifies the address stored in xdp_md->data, so the latter must be loaded only after the helper has been called.

The use of xdp_md->data_meta is optional and programs are not required to use it. The rationale is that when the packet is processed with XDP (e.g. as DoS filter), it is possible to push further meta data along with it before passing to the stack, and to give the guarantee that an ingress eBPF program attached as a TC classifier on the same device can pick this up for further post-processing. Since TC works with socket buffers, it remains possible to set from XDP the mark or priority pointers, or other pointers for the socket buffer. Having this scratch space generic and programmable allows for more flexibility as the user is free to store whatever meta data they need.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Read the value of a perf event counter, and store it into buf of size buf_size. This helper relies on a map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERF_EVENT_ARRAY. The nature of the perf event counter is selected when map is updated with perf event file descriptors. The map is an array whose size is the number of available CPUs, and each cell contains a value relative to one CPU. The value to retrieve is indicated by flags, that contains the index of the CPU to look up, masked with BPF_F_INDEX_MASK. Alternatively, flags can be set to BPF_F_CURRENT_CPU to indicate that the value for the current CPU should be retrieved.

This helper behaves in a way close to bpf_perf_event_read() helper, save that instead of just returning the value observed, it fills the buf structure. This allows for additional data to be retrieved: in particular, the enabled and running times (in buf->enabled and buf->running, respectively) are copied. In general, bpf_perf_event_read_value() is recommended over bpf_perf_event_read(), which has some ABI issues and provides fewer functionalities.

These values are interesting, because hardware PMU (Performance Monitoring Unit) counters are limited resources. When there are more PMU based perf events opened than available counters, kernel will multiplex these events so each event gets certain percentage (but not all) of the PMU time. In case that multiplexing happens, the number of samples or counter value will not reflect the case compared to when no multiplexing occurs. This makes comparison between different runs difficult. Typically, the counter value should be normalized before comparing to other experiments. The usual normalization is done as follows.

normalized_counter = counter * t_enabled / t_running


Where t_enabled is the time enabled for event and t_running is the time running for event since last normalization. The enabled and running times are accumulated since the perf event open. To achieve scaling factor between two invocations of an eBPF program, users can use CPU id as the key (which is typical for perf array usage model) to remember the previous value and do the calculation inside the eBPF program.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

For en eBPF program attached to a perf event, retrieve the value of the event counter associated to ctx and store it in the structure pointed by buf and of size buf_size. Enabled and running times are also stored in the structure (see description of helper bpf_perf_event_read_value() for more details).
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Emulate a call to getsockopt() on the socket associated to bpf_socket, which must be a full socket. The level at which the option resides and the name optname of the option must be specified, see getsockopt(2) for more information. The retrieved value is stored in the structure pointed by opval and of length optlen.

bpf_socket should be one of the following:

  • struct bpf_sock_ops for BPF_PROG_TYPE_SOCK_OPS.
  • struct bpf_sock_addr for BPF_CGROUP_INET4_CONNECT and BPF_CGROUP_INET6_CONNECT.

This helper actually implements a subset of getsockopt(). It supports the same set of optnames that is supported by the bpf_setsockopt() helper. The exceptions are TCP_BPF_* is bpf_setsockopt() only and TCP_SAVED_SYN is bpf_getsockopt() only.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Used for error injection, this helper uses kprobes to override the return value of the probed function, and to set it to rc. The first argument is the context regs on which the kprobe works.

This helper works by setting the PC (program counter) to an override function which is run in place of the original probed function. This means the probed function is not run at all. The replacement function just returns with the required value.

This helper has security implications, and thus is subject to restrictions. It is only available if the kernel was compiled with the CONFIG_BPF_KPROBE_OVERRIDE configuration option, and in this case it only works on functions tagged with ALLOW_ERROR_INJECTION in the kernel code.

Also, the helper is only available for the architectures having the CONFIG_FUNCTION_ERROR_INJECTION option. As of this writing, x86 architecture is the only one to support this feature.

0

Attempt to set the value of the bpf_sock_ops_cb_flags field for the full TCP socket associated to bpf_sock_ops to argval.

The primary use of this field is to determine if there should be calls to eBPF programs of type BPF_PROG_TYPE_SOCK_OPS at various points in the TCP code. A program of the same type can change its value, per connection and as necessary, when the connection is established. This field is directly accessible for reading, but this helper must be used for updates in order to return an error if an eBPF program tries to set a callback that is not supported in the current kernel.

argval is a flag array which can combine these flags:

  • BPF_SOCK_OPS_RTO_CB_FLAG (retransmission time out)
  • BPF_SOCK_OPS_RETRANS_CB_FLAG (retransmission)
  • BPF_SOCK_OPS_STATE_CB_FLAG (TCP state change)
  • BPF_SOCK_OPS_RTT_CB_FLAG (every RTT)

Therefore, this function can be used to clear a callback flag by setting the appropriate bit to zero. e.g. to disable the RTO callback:

bpf_sock->bpf_sock_ops_cb_flags & ~BPF_SOCK_OPS_RTO_CB_FLAG)

Here are some examples of where one could call such eBPF program:

  • When RTO fires.
  • When a packet is retransmitted.
  • When the connection terminates.
  • When a packet is sent.
  • When a packet is received.

Code -EINVAL if the socket is not a full TCP socket; otherwise, a positive number containing the bits that could not be set is returned (which comes down to 0 if all bits were set as required).

This helper is used in programs implementing policies at the socket level. If the message msg is allowed to pass (i.e. if the verdict eBPF program returns SK_PASS), redirect it to the socket referenced by map (of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_SOCKMAP) at index key. Both ingress and egress interfaces can be used for redirection. The BPF_F_INGRESS value in flags is used to make the distinction (ingress path is selected if the flag is present, egress path otherwise). This is the only flag supported for now.
SK_PASS on success, or SK_DROP on error.

For socket policies, apply the verdict of the eBPF program to the next bytes (number of bytes) of message msg.

For example, this helper can be used in the following cases:

  • A single sendmsg() or sendfile() system call contains multiple logical messages that the eBPF program is supposed to read and for which it should apply a verdict.
  • An eBPF program only cares to read the first bytes of a msg. If the message has a large payload, then setting up and calling the eBPF program repeatedly for all bytes, even though the verdict is already known, would create unnecessary overhead.

When called from within an eBPF program, the helper sets a counter internal to the BPF infrastructure, that is used to apply the last verdict to the next bytes. If bytes is smaller than the current data being processed from a sendmsg() or sendfile() system call, the first bytes will be sent and the eBPF program will be re-run with the pointer for start of data pointing to byte number bytes + 1. If bytes is larger than the current data being processed, then the eBPF verdict will be applied to multiple sendmsg() or sendfile() calls until bytes are consumed.

Note that if a socket closes with the internal counter holding a non-zero value, this is not a problem because data is not being buffered for bytes and is sent as it is received.

0

For socket policies, prevent the execution of the verdict eBPF program for message msg until bytes (byte number) have been accumulated.

This can be used when one needs a specific number of bytes before a verdict can be assigned, even if the data spans multiple sendmsg() or sendfile() calls. The extreme case would be a user calling sendmsg() repeatedly with 1-byte long message segments. Obviously, this is bad for performance, but it is still valid. If the eBPF program needs bytes bytes to validate a header, this helper can be used to prevent the eBPF program to be called again until bytes have been accumulated.

0

For socket policies, pull in non-linear data from user space for msg and set pointers msg->data and msg->data_end to start and end bytes offsets into msg, respectively.

If a program of type BPF_PROG_TYPE_SK_MSG is run on a msg it can only parse data that the (data, data_end) pointers have already consumed. For sendmsg() hooks this is likely the first scatterlist element. But for calls relying on the sendpage handler (e.g. sendfile()) this will be the range (0, 0) because the data is shared with user space and by default the objective is to avoid allowing user space to modify data while (or after) eBPF verdict is being decided. This helper can be used to pull in data and to set the start and end pointer to given values. Data will be copied if necessary (i.e. if data was not linear and if start and end pointers do not point to the same chunk).

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

All values for flags are reserved for future usage, and must be left at zero.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Bind the socket associated to ctx to the address pointed by addr, of length addr_len. This allows for making outgoing connection from the desired IP address, which can be useful for example when all processes inside a cgroup should use one single IP address on a host that has multiple IP configured.

This helper works for IPv4 and IPv6, TCP and UDP sockets. The domain (addr->sa_family) must be AF_INET (or AF_INET6). It's advised to pass zero port (sin_port or sin6_port) which triggers IP_BIND_ADDRESS_NO_PORT-like behavior and lets the kernel efficiently pick up an unused port as long as 4-tuple is unique. Passing non-zero port might lead to degraded performance.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Adjust (move) xdp_md->data_end by delta bytes. It is possible to both shrink and grow the packet tail. Shrink done via delta being a negative integer.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Retrieve the XFRM state (IP transform framework, see also ip-xfrm(8)) at index in XFRM "security path" for skb.

The retrieved value is stored in the struct bpf_xfrm_state pointed by xfrm_state and of length size.

All values for flags are reserved for future usage, and must be left at zero.

This helper is available only if the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_XFRM configuration option.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Return a user or a kernel stack in bpf program provided buffer. To achieve this, the helper needs ctx, which is a pointer to the context on which the tracing program is executed. To store the stacktrace, the bpf program provides buf with a nonnegative size.

The last argument, flags, holds the number of stack frames to skip (from 0 to 255), masked with BPF_F_SKIP_FIELD_MASK. The next bits can be used to set the following flags:

Collect a user space stack instead of a kernel stack.
Collect (build_id, file_offset) instead of ips for user stack, only valid if BPF_F_USER_STACK is also specified.

file_offset is an offset relative to the beginning of the executable or shared object file backing the vma which the ip falls in. It is not an offset relative to that object's base address. Accordingly, it must be adjusted by adding (sh_addr - sh_offset), where sh_{addr,offset} correspond to the executable section containing file_offset in the object, for comparisons to symbols' st_value to be valid.


bpf_get_stack() can collect up to PERF_MAX_STACK_DEPTH both kernel and user frames, subject to sufficient large buffer size. Note that this limit can be controlled with the sysctl program, and that it should be manually increased in order to profile long user stacks (such as stacks for Java programs). To do so, use:

# sysctl kernel.perf_event_max_stack=<new value>


The non-negative copied buf length equal to or less than size on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

This helper is similar to bpf_skb_load_bytes() in that it provides an easy way to load len bytes from offset from the packet associated to skb, into the buffer pointed by to. The difference to bpf_skb_load_bytes() is that a fifth argument start_header exists in order to select a base offset to start from. start_header can be one of:
Base offset to load data from is skb's mac header.
Base offset to load data from is skb's network header.

In general, "direct packet access" is the preferred method to access packet data, however, this helper is in particular useful in socket filters where skb->data does not always point to the start of the mac header and where "direct packet access" is not available.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Do FIB lookup in kernel tables using parameters in params. If lookup is successful and result shows packet is to be forwarded, the neighbor tables are searched for the nexthop. If successful (ie., FIB lookup shows forwarding and nexthop is resolved), the nexthop address is returned in ipv4_dst or ipv6_dst based on family, smac is set to mac address of egress device, dmac is set to nexthop mac address, rt_metric is set to metric from route (IPv4/IPv6 only), and ifindex is set to the device index of the nexthop from the FIB lookup.

plen argument is the size of the passed in struct. flags argument can be a combination of one or more of the following values:

Do a direct table lookup vs full lookup using FIB rules.
Perform lookup from an egress perspective (default is ingress).

ctx is either struct xdp_md for XDP programs or struct sk_buff tc cls_act programs.

  • < 0 if any input argument is invalid
  • 0 on success (packet is forwarded, nexthop neighbor exists)
  • > 0 one of BPF_FIB_LKUP_RET_ codes explaining why the packet is not forwarded or needs assist from full stack

If lookup fails with BPF_FIB_LKUP_RET_FRAG_NEEDED, then the MTU was exceeded and output params->mtu_result contains the MTU.


Add an entry to, or update a sockhash map referencing sockets. The skops is used as a new value for the entry associated to key. flags is one of:
The entry for key must not exist in the map.
The entry for key must already exist in the map.
No condition on the existence of the entry for key.

If the map has eBPF programs (parser and verdict), those will be inherited by the socket being added. If the socket is already attached to eBPF programs, this results in an error.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

This helper is used in programs implementing policies at the socket level. If the message msg is allowed to pass (i.e. if the verdict eBPF program returns SK_PASS), redirect it to the socket referenced by map (of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_SOCKHASH) using hash key. Both ingress and egress interfaces can be used for redirection. The BPF_F_INGRESS value in flags is used to make the distinction (ingress path is selected if the flag is present, egress path otherwise). This is the only flag supported for now.
SK_PASS on success, or SK_DROP on error.

This helper is used in programs implementing policies at the skb socket level. If the sk_buff skb is allowed to pass (i.e. if the verdict eBPF program returns SK_PASS), redirect it to the socket referenced by map (of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_SOCKHASH) using hash key. Both ingress and egress interfaces can be used for redirection. The BPF_F_INGRESS value in flags is used to make the distinction (ingress path is selected if the flag is present, egress otherwise). This is the only flag supported for now.
SK_PASS on success, or SK_DROP on error.

Encapsulate the packet associated to skb within a Layer 3 protocol header. This header is provided in the buffer at address hdr, with len its size in bytes. type indicates the protocol of the header and can be one of:
IPv6 encapsulation with Segment Routing Header (struct ipv6_sr_hdr). hdr only contains the SRH, the IPv6 header is computed by the kernel.
Only works if skb contains an IPv6 packet. Insert a Segment Routing Header (struct ipv6_sr_hdr) inside the IPv6 header.
IP encapsulation (GRE/GUE/IPIP/etc). The outer header must be IPv4 or IPv6, followed by zero or more additional headers, up to LWT_BPF_MAX_HEADROOM total bytes in all prepended headers. Please note that if skb_is_gso(skb) is true, no more than two headers can be prepended, and the inner header, if present, should be either GRE or UDP/GUE.

BPF_LWT_ENCAP_SEG6* types can be called by BPF programs of type BPF_PROG_TYPE_LWT_IN; BPF_LWT_ENCAP_IP type can be called by bpf programs of types BPF_PROG_TYPE_LWT_IN and BPF_PROG_TYPE_LWT_XMIT.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Store len bytes from address from into the packet associated to skb, at offset. Only the flags, tag and TLVs inside the outermost IPv6 Segment Routing Header can be modified through this helper.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Adjust the size allocated to TLVs in the outermost IPv6 Segment Routing Header contained in the packet associated to skb, at position offset by delta bytes. Only offsets after the segments are accepted. delta can be as well positive (growing) as negative (shrinking).

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Apply an IPv6 Segment Routing action of type action to the packet associated to skb. Each action takes a parameter contained at address param, and of length param_len bytes. action can be one of:
End.X action: Endpoint with Layer-3 cross-connect. Type of param: struct in6_addr.
End.T action: Endpoint with specific IPv6 table lookup. Type of param: int.
End.B6 action: Endpoint bound to an SRv6 policy. Type of param: struct ipv6_sr_hdr.
End.B6.Encap action: Endpoint bound to an SRv6 encapsulation policy. Type of param: struct ipv6_sr_hdr.

A call to this helper is susceptible to change the underlying packet buffer. Therefore, at load time, all checks on pointers previously done by the verifier are invalidated and must be performed again, if the helper is used in combination with direct packet access.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

This helper is used in programs implementing IR decoding, to report a successfully decoded repeat key message. This delays the generation of a key up event for previously generated key down event.

Some IR protocols like NEC have a special IR message for repeating last button, for when a button is held down.

The ctx should point to the lirc sample as passed into the program.

This helper is only available is the kernel was compiled with the CONFIG_BPF_LIRC_MODE2 configuration option set to "y".

0

This helper is used in programs implementing IR decoding, to report a successfully decoded key press with scancode, toggle value in the given protocol. The scancode will be translated to a keycode using the rc keymap, and reported as an input key down event. After a period a key up event is generated. This period can be extended by calling either bpf_rc_keydown() again with the same values, or calling bpf_rc_repeat().

Some protocols include a toggle bit, in case the button was released and pressed again between consecutive scancodes.

The ctx should point to the lirc sample as passed into the program.

The protocol is the decoded protocol number (see enum rc_proto for some predefined values).

This helper is only available is the kernel was compiled with the CONFIG_BPF_LIRC_MODE2 configuration option set to "y".

0

Return the cgroup v2 id of the socket associated with the skb. This is roughly similar to the bpf_get_cgroup_classid() helper for cgroup v1 by providing a tag resp. identifier that can be matched on or used for map lookups e.g. to implement policy. The cgroup v2 id of a given path in the hierarchy is exposed in user space through the f_handle API in order to get to the same 64-bit id.

This helper can be used on TC egress path, but not on ingress, and is available only if the kernel was compiled with the CONFIG_SOCK_CGROUP_DATA configuration option.

The id is returned or 0 in case the id could not be retrieved.

Get the current cgroup id based on the cgroup within which the current task is running.
A 64-bit integer containing the current cgroup id based on the cgroup within which the current task is running.

Get the pointer to the local storage area. The type and the size of the local storage is defined by the map argument. The flags meaning is specific for each map type, and has to be 0 for cgroup local storage.

Depending on the BPF program type, a local storage area can be shared between multiple instances of the BPF program, running simultaneously.

A user should care about the synchronization by himself. For example, by using the BPF_ATOMIC instructions to alter the shared data.

A pointer to the local storage area.

Select a SO_REUSEPORT socket from a BPF_MAP_TYPE_REUSEPORT_SOCKARRAY map. It checks the selected socket is matching the incoming request in the socket buffer.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Return id of cgroup v2 that is ancestor of cgroup associated with the skb at the ancestor_level. The root cgroup is at ancestor_level zero and each step down the hierarchy increments the level. If ancestor_level == level of cgroup associated with skb, then return value will be same as that of bpf_skb_cgroup_id().

The helper is useful to implement policies based on cgroups that are upper in hierarchy than immediate cgroup associated with skb.

The format of returned id and helper limitations are same as in bpf_skb_cgroup_id().

The id is returned or 0 in case the id could not be retrieved.

Look for TCP socket matching tuple, optionally in a child network namespace netns. The return value must be checked, and if non-NULL, released via bpf_sk_release().

The ctx should point to the context of the program, such as the skb or socket (depending on the hook in use). This is used to determine the base network namespace for the lookup.

tuple_size must be one of:

Look for an IPv4 socket.
Look for an IPv6 socket.

If the netns is a negative signed 32-bit integer, then the socket lookup table in the netns associated with the ctx will be used. For the TC hooks, this is the netns of the device in the skb. For socket hooks, this is the netns of the socket. If netns is any other signed 32-bit value greater than or equal to zero then it specifies the ID of the netns relative to the netns associated with the ctx. netns values beyond the range of 32-bit integers are reserved for future use.

All values for flags are reserved for future usage, and must be left at zero.

This helper is available only if the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_NET configuration option.

Pointer to struct bpf_sock, or NULL in case of failure. For sockets with reuseport option, the struct bpf_sock result is from reuse->socks[] using the hash of the tuple.

Look for UDP socket matching tuple, optionally in a child network namespace netns. The return value must be checked, and if non-NULL, released via bpf_sk_release().

The ctx should point to the context of the program, such as the skb or socket (depending on the hook in use). This is used to determine the base network namespace for the lookup.

tuple_size must be one of:

Look for an IPv4 socket.
Look for an IPv6 socket.

If the netns is a negative signed 32-bit integer, then the socket lookup table in the netns associated with the ctx will be used. For the TC hooks, this is the netns of the device in the skb. For socket hooks, this is the netns of the socket. If netns is any other signed 32-bit value greater than or equal to zero then it specifies the ID of the netns relative to the netns associated with the ctx. netns values beyond the range of 32-bit integers are reserved for future use.

All values for flags are reserved for future usage, and must be left at zero.

This helper is available only if the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_NET configuration option.

Pointer to struct bpf_sock, or NULL in case of failure. For sockets with reuseport option, the struct bpf_sock result is from reuse->socks[] using the hash of the tuple.

Release the reference held by sock. sock must be a non-NULL pointer that was returned from bpf_sk_lookup_xxx().
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Push an element value in map. flags is one of:
If the queue/stack is full, the oldest element is removed to make room for this.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Pop an element from map.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Get an element from map without removing it.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

For socket policies, insert len bytes into msg at offset start.

If a program of type BPF_PROG_TYPE_SK_MSG is run on a msg it may want to insert metadata or options into the msg. This can later be read and used by any of the lower layer BPF hooks.

This helper may fail if under memory pressure (a malloc fails) in these cases BPF programs will get an appropriate error and BPF programs will need to handle them.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Will remove len bytes from a msg starting at byte start. This may result in ENOMEM errors under certain situations if an allocation and copy are required due to a full ring buffer. However, the helper will try to avoid doing the allocation if possible. Other errors can occur if input parameters are invalid either due to start byte not being valid part of msg payload and/or pop value being to large.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

This helper is used in programs implementing IR decoding, to report a successfully decoded pointer movement.

The ctx should point to the lirc sample as passed into the program.

This helper is only available is the kernel was compiled with the CONFIG_BPF_LIRC_MODE2 configuration option set to "y".

0

Acquire a spinlock represented by the pointer lock, which is stored as part of a value of a map. Taking the lock allows to safely update the rest of the fields in that value. The spinlock can (and must) later be released with a call to bpf_spin_unlock(lock).

Spinlocks in BPF programs come with a number of restrictions and constraints:

  • bpf_spin_lock objects are only allowed inside maps of types BPF_MAP_TYPE_HASH and BPF_MAP_TYPE_ARRAY (this list could be extended in the future).
  • BTF description of the map is mandatory.
  • The BPF program can take ONE lock at a time, since taking two or more could cause dead locks.
  • Only one struct bpf_spin_lock is allowed per map element.
  • When the lock is taken, calls (either BPF to BPF or helpers) are not allowed.
  • The BPF_LD_ABS and BPF_LD_IND instructions are not allowed inside a spinlock-ed region.
  • The BPF program MUST call bpf_spin_unlock() to release the lock, on all execution paths, before it returns.
  • The BPF program can access struct bpf_spin_lock only via the bpf_spin_lock() and bpf_spin_unlock() helpers. Loading or storing data into the struct bpf_spin_lock lock; field of a map is not allowed.
  • To use the bpf_spin_lock() helper, the BTF description of the map value must be a struct and have struct bpf_spin_lock anyname; field at the top level. Nested lock inside another struct is not allowed.
  • The struct bpf_spin_lock lock field in a map value must be aligned on a multiple of 4 bytes in that value.
  • Syscall with command BPF_MAP_LOOKUP_ELEM does not copy the bpf_spin_lock field to user space.
  • Syscall with command BPF_MAP_UPDATE_ELEM, or update from a BPF program, do not update the bpf_spin_lock field.
  • bpf_spin_lock cannot be on the stack or inside a networking packet (it can only be inside of a map values).
  • bpf_spin_lock is available to root only.
  • Tracing programs and socket filter programs cannot use bpf_spin_lock() due to insufficient preemption checks (but this may change in the future).
  • bpf_spin_lock is not allowed in inner maps of map-in-map.

0

Release the lock previously locked by a call to bpf_spin_lock(lock).
0

This helper gets a struct bpf_sock pointer such that all the fields in this bpf_sock can be accessed.
A struct bpf_sock pointer on success, or NULL in case of failure.

This helper gets a struct bpf_tcp_sock pointer from a struct bpf_sock pointer.
A struct bpf_tcp_sock pointer on success, or NULL in case of failure.

Set ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification) field of IP header to CE (Congestion Encountered) if current value is ECT (ECN Capable Transport). Otherwise, do nothing. Works with IPv6 and IPv4.
1 if the CE flag is set (either by the current helper call or because it was already present), 0 if it is not set.

Return a struct bpf_sock pointer in TCP_LISTEN state. bpf_sk_release() is unnecessary and not allowed.
A struct bpf_sock pointer on success, or NULL in case of failure.

Look for TCP socket matching tuple, optionally in a child network namespace netns. The return value must be checked, and if non-NULL, released via bpf_sk_release().

This function is identical to bpf_sk_lookup_tcp(), except that it also returns timewait or request sockets. Use bpf_sk_fullsock() or bpf_tcp_sock() to access the full structure.

This helper is available only if the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_NET configuration option.

Pointer to struct bpf_sock, or NULL in case of failure. For sockets with reuseport option, the struct bpf_sock result is from reuse->socks[] using the hash of the tuple.

Check whether iph and th contain a valid SYN cookie ACK for the listening socket in sk.

iph points to the start of the IPv4 or IPv6 header, while iph_len contains sizeof(struct iphdr) or sizeof(struct ipv6hdr).

th points to the start of the TCP header, while th_len contains the length of the TCP header (at least sizeof(struct tcphdr)).

0 if iph and th are a valid SYN cookie ACK, or a negative error otherwise.

Get name of sysctl in /proc/sys/ and copy it into provided by program buffer buf of size buf_len.

The buffer is always NUL terminated, unless it's zero-sized.

If flags is zero, full name (e.g. "net/ipv4/tcp_mem") is copied. Use BPF_F_SYSCTL_BASE_NAME flag to copy base name only (e.g. "tcp_mem").

Number of character copied (not including the trailing NUL).

-E2BIG if the buffer wasn't big enough (buf will contain truncated name in this case).


Get current value of sysctl as it is presented in /proc/sys (incl. newline, etc), and copy it as a string into provided by program buffer buf of size buf_len.

The whole value is copied, no matter what file position user space issued e.g. sys_read at.

The buffer is always NUL terminated, unless it's zero-sized.

Number of character copied (not including the trailing NUL).

-E2BIG if the buffer wasn't big enough (buf will contain truncated name in this case).

-EINVAL if current value was unavailable, e.g. because sysctl is uninitialized and read returns -EIO for it.


Get new value being written by user space to sysctl (before the actual write happens) and copy it as a string into provided by program buffer buf of size buf_len.

User space may write new value at file position > 0.

The buffer is always NUL terminated, unless it's zero-sized.

Number of character copied (not including the trailing NUL).

-E2BIG if the buffer wasn't big enough (buf will contain truncated name in this case).

-EINVAL if sysctl is being read.


Override new value being written by user space to sysctl with value provided by program in buffer buf of size buf_len.

buf should contain a string in same form as provided by user space on sysctl write.

User space may write new value at file position > 0. To override the whole sysctl value file position should be set to zero.

0 on success.

-E2BIG if the buf_len is too big.

-EINVAL if sysctl is being read.


Convert the initial part of the string from buffer buf of size buf_len to a long integer according to the given base and save the result in res.

The string may begin with an arbitrary amount of white space (as determined by isspace(3)) followed by a single optional '-' sign.

Five least significant bits of flags encode base, other bits are currently unused.

Base must be either 8, 10, 16 or 0 to detect it automatically similar to user space strtol(3).

Number of characters consumed on success. Must be positive but no more than buf_len.

-EINVAL if no valid digits were found or unsupported base was provided.

-ERANGE if resulting value was out of range.


Convert the initial part of the string from buffer buf of size buf_len to an unsigned long integer according to the given base and save the result in res.

The string may begin with an arbitrary amount of white space (as determined by isspace(3)).

Five least significant bits of flags encode base, other bits are currently unused.

Base must be either 8, 10, 16 or 0 to detect it automatically similar to user space strtoul(3).

Number of characters consumed on success. Must be positive but no more than buf_len.

-EINVAL if no valid digits were found or unsupported base was provided.

-ERANGE if resulting value was out of range.


Get a bpf-local-storage from a sk.

Logically, it could be thought of getting the value from a map with sk as the key. From this perspective, the usage is not much different from bpf_map_lookup_elem(map, &sk) except this helper enforces the key must be a full socket and the map must be a BPF_MAP_TYPE_SK_STORAGE also.

Underneath, the value is stored locally at sk instead of the map. The map is used as the bpf-local-storage "type". The bpf-local-storage "type" (i.e. the map) is searched against all bpf-local-storages residing at sk.

sk is a kernel struct sock pointer for LSM program. sk is a struct bpf_sock pointer for other program types.

An optional flags (BPF_SK_STORAGE_GET_F_CREATE) can be used such that a new bpf-local-storage will be created if one does not exist. value can be used together with BPF_SK_STORAGE_GET_F_CREATE to specify the initial value of a bpf-local-storage. If value is NULL, the new bpf-local-storage will be zero initialized.

A bpf-local-storage pointer is returned on success.

NULL if not found or there was an error in adding a new bpf-local-storage.


Delete a bpf-local-storage from a sk.
0 on success.

-ENOENT if the bpf-local-storage cannot be found. -EINVAL if sk is not a fullsock (e.g. a request_sock).


Send signal sig to the process of the current task. The signal may be delivered to any of this process's threads.
0 on success or successfully queued.

-EBUSY if work queue under nmi is full.

-EINVAL if sig is invalid.

-EPERM if no permission to send the sig.

-EAGAIN if bpf program can try again.


Try to issue a SYN cookie for the packet with corresponding IP/TCP headers, iph and th, on the listening socket in sk.

iph points to the start of the IPv4 or IPv6 header, while iph_len contains sizeof(struct iphdr) or sizeof(struct ipv6hdr).

th points to the start of the TCP header, while th_len contains the length of the TCP header with options (at least sizeof(struct tcphdr)).

On success, lower 32 bits hold the generated SYN cookie in followed by 16 bits which hold the MSS value for that cookie, and the top 16 bits are unused.

On failure, the returned value is one of the following:

-EINVAL SYN cookie cannot be issued due to error

-ENOENT SYN cookie should not be issued (no SYN flood)

-EOPNOTSUPP kernel configuration does not enable SYN cookies

-EPROTONOSUPPORT IP packet version is not 4 or 6


Write raw data blob into a special BPF perf event held by map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERF_EVENT_ARRAY. This perf event must have the following attributes: PERF_SAMPLE_RAW as sample_type, PERF_TYPE_SOFTWARE as type, and PERF_COUNT_SW_BPF_OUTPUT as config.

The flags are used to indicate the index in map for which the value must be put, masked with BPF_F_INDEX_MASK. Alternatively, flags can be set to BPF_F_CURRENT_CPU to indicate that the index of the current CPU core should be used.

The value to write, of size, is passed through eBPF stack and pointed by data.

ctx is a pointer to in-kernel struct sk_buff.

This helper is similar to bpf_perf_event_output() but restricted to raw_tracepoint bpf programs.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Safely attempt to read size bytes from user space address unsafe_ptr and store the data in dst.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Safely attempt to read size bytes from kernel space address unsafe_ptr and store the data in dst.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Copy a NUL terminated string from an unsafe user address unsafe_ptr to dst. The size should include the terminating NUL byte. In case the string length is smaller than size, the target is not padded with further NUL bytes. If the string length is larger than size, just size-1 bytes are copied and the last byte is set to NUL.

On success, returns the number of bytes that were written, including the terminal NUL. This makes this helper useful in tracing programs for reading strings, and more importantly to get its length at runtime. See the following snippet:

SEC("kprobe/sys_open")
void bpf_sys_open(struct pt_regs *ctx)
{

char buf[PATHLEN]; // PATHLEN is defined to 256
int res;
res = bpf_probe_read_user_str(buf, sizeof(buf),
ctx->di);
// Consume buf, for example push it to
// userspace via bpf_perf_event_output(); we
// can use res (the string length) as event
// size, after checking its boundaries. }


In comparison, using bpf_probe_read_user() helper here instead to read the string would require to estimate the length at compile time, and would often result in copying more memory than necessary.

Another useful use case is when parsing individual process arguments or individual environment variables navigating current->mm->arg_start and current->mm->env_start: using this helper and the return value, one can quickly iterate at the right offset of the memory area.

On success, the strictly positive length of the output string, including the trailing NUL character. On error, a negative value.

Copy a NUL terminated string from an unsafe kernel address unsafe_ptr to dst. Same semantics as with bpf_probe_read_user_str() apply.
On success, the strictly positive length of the string, including the trailing NUL character. On error, a negative value.

Send out a tcp-ack. tp is the in-kernel struct tcp_sock. rcv_nxt is the ack_seq to be sent out.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Send signal sig to the thread corresponding to the current task.
0 on success or successfully queued.

-EBUSY if work queue under nmi is full.

-EINVAL if sig is invalid.

-EPERM if no permission to send the sig.

-EAGAIN if bpf program can try again.


Obtain the 64bit jiffies
The 64 bit jiffies

For an eBPF program attached to a perf event, retrieve the branch records (struct perf_branch_entry) associated to ctx and store it in the buffer pointed by buf up to size size bytes.
On success, number of bytes written to buf. On error, a negative value.

The flags can be set to BPF_F_GET_BRANCH_RECORDS_SIZE to instead return the number of bytes required to store all the branch entries. If this flag is set, buf may be NULL.

-EINVAL if arguments invalid or size not a multiple of sizeof(struct perf_branch_entry).

-ENOENT if architecture does not support branch records.


Returns 0 on success, values for pid and tgid as seen from the current namespace will be returned in nsdata.
0 on success, or one of the following in case of failure:

-EINVAL if dev and inum supplied don't match dev_t and inode number with nsfs of current task, or if dev conversion to dev_t lost high bits.

-ENOENT if pidns does not exists for the current task.


Write raw data blob into a special BPF perf event held by map of type BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERF_EVENT_ARRAY. This perf event must have the following attributes: PERF_SAMPLE_RAW as sample_type, PERF_TYPE_SOFTWARE as type, and PERF_COUNT_SW_BPF_OUTPUT as config.

The flags are used to indicate the index in map for which the value must be put, masked with BPF_F_INDEX_MASK. Alternatively, flags can be set to BPF_F_CURRENT_CPU to indicate that the index of the current CPU core should be used.

The value to write, of size, is passed through eBPF stack and pointed by data.

ctx is a pointer to in-kernel struct xdp_buff.

This helper is similar to bpf_perf_eventoutput() but restricted to raw_tracepoint bpf programs.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Retrieve the cookie (generated by the kernel) of the network namespace the input ctx is associated with. The network namespace cookie remains stable for its lifetime and provides a global identifier that can be assumed unique. If ctx is NULL, then the helper returns the cookie for the initial network namespace. The cookie itself is very similar to that of bpf_get_socket_cookie() helper, but for network namespaces instead of sockets.
A 8-byte long opaque number.

Return id of cgroup v2 that is ancestor of the cgroup associated with the current task at the ancestor_level. The root cgroup is at ancestor_level zero and each step down the hierarchy increments the level. If ancestor_level == level of cgroup associated with the current task, then return value will be the same as that of bpf_get_current_cgroup_id().

The helper is useful to implement policies based on cgroups that are upper in hierarchy than immediate cgroup associated with the current task.

The format of returned id and helper limitations are same as in bpf_get_current_cgroup_id().

The id is returned or 0 in case the id could not be retrieved.

Helper is overloaded depending on BPF program type. This description applies to BPF_PROG_TYPE_SCHED_CLS and BPF_PROG_TYPE_SCHED_ACT programs.

Assign the sk to the skb. When combined with appropriate routing configuration to receive the packet towards the socket, will cause skb to be delivered to the specified socket. Subsequent redirection of skb via bpf_redirect(), bpf_clone_redirect() or other methods outside of BPF may interfere with successful delivery to the socket.

This operation is only valid from TC ingress path.

The flags argument must be zero.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure:

-EINVAL if specified flags are not supported.

-ENOENT if the socket is unavailable for assignment.

-ENETUNREACH if the socket is unreachable (wrong netns).

-EOPNOTSUPP if the operation is not supported, for example a call from outside of TC ingress.

-ESOCKTNOSUPPORT if the socket type is not supported (reuseport).


Helper is overloaded depending on BPF program type. This description applies to BPF_PROG_TYPE_SK_LOOKUP programs.

Select the sk as a result of a socket lookup.

For the operation to succeed passed socket must be compatible with the packet description provided by the ctx object.

L4 protocol (IPPROTO_TCP or IPPROTO_UDP) must be an exact match. While IP family (AF_INET or AF_INET6) must be compatible, that is IPv6 sockets that are not v6-only can be selected for IPv4 packets.

Only TCP listeners and UDP unconnected sockets can be selected. sk can also be NULL to reset any previous selection.

flags argument can combination of following values:

  • BPF_SK_LOOKUP_F_REPLACE to override the previous socket selection, potentially done by a BPF program that ran before us.
  • BPF_SK_LOOKUP_F_NO_REUSEPORT to skip load-balancing within reuseport group for the socket being selected.

On success ctx->sk will point to the selected socket.

0 on success, or a negative errno in case of failure.
  • -EAFNOSUPPORT if socket family (sk->family) is not compatible with packet family (ctx->family).
  • -EEXIST if socket has been already selected, potentially by another program, and BPF_SK_LOOKUP_F_REPLACE flag was not specified.
  • -EINVAL if unsupported flags were specified.
  • -EPROTOTYPE if socket L4 protocol (sk->protocol) doesn't match packet protocol (ctx->protocol).
  • -ESOCKTNOSUPPORT if socket is not in allowed state (TCP listening or UDP unconnected).


Return the time elapsed since system boot, in nanoseconds. Does include the time the system was suspended. See: clock_gettime(CLOCK_BOOTTIME)
Current ktime.

bpf_seq_printf() uses seq_file seq_printf() to print out the format string. The m represents the seq_file. The fmt and fmt_size are for the format string itself. The data and data_len are format string arguments. The data are a u64 array and corresponding format string values are stored in the array. For strings and pointers where pointees are accessed, only the pointer values are stored in the data array. The data_len is the size of data in bytes - must be a multiple of 8.

Formats %s, %p{i,I}{4,6} requires to read kernel memory. Reading kernel memory may fail due to either invalid address or valid address but requiring a major memory fault. If reading kernel memory fails, the string for %s will be an empty string, and the ip address for %p{i,I}{4,6} will be 0. Not returning error to bpf program is consistent with what bpf_trace_printk() does for now.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure:

-EBUSY if per-CPU memory copy buffer is busy, can try again by returning 1 from bpf program.

-EINVAL if arguments are invalid, or if fmt is invalid/unsupported.

-E2BIG if fmt contains too many format specifiers.

-EOVERFLOW if an overflow happened: The same object will be tried again.


bpf_seq_write() uses seq_file seq_write() to write the data. The m represents the seq_file. The data and len represent the data to write in bytes.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure:

-EOVERFLOW if an overflow happened: The same object will be tried again.


Return the cgroup v2 id of the socket sk.

sk must be a non-NULL pointer to a socket, e.g. one returned from bpf_sk_lookup_xxx(), bpf_sk_fullsock(), etc. The format of returned id is same as in bpf_skb_cgroup_id().

This helper is available only if the kernel was compiled with the CONFIG_SOCK_CGROUP_DATA configuration option.

The id is returned or 0 in case the id could not be retrieved.

Return id of cgroup v2 that is ancestor of cgroup associated with the sk at the ancestor_level. The root cgroup is at ancestor_level zero and each step down the hierarchy increments the level. If ancestor_level == level of cgroup associated with sk, then return value will be same as that of bpf_sk_cgroup_id().

The helper is useful to implement policies based on cgroups that are upper in hierarchy than immediate cgroup associated with sk.

The format of returned id and helper limitations are same as in bpf_sk_cgroup_id().

The id is returned or 0 in case the id could not be retrieved.

Copy size bytes from data into a ring buffer ringbuf. If BPF_RB_NO_WAKEUP is specified in flags, no notification of new data availability is sent. If BPF_RB_FORCE_WAKEUP is specified in flags, notification of new data availability is sent unconditionally. If 0 is specified in flags, an adaptive notification of new data availability is sent.

An adaptive notification is a notification sent whenever the user-space process has caught up and consumed all available payloads. In case the user-space process is still processing a previous payload, then no notification is needed as it will process the newly added payload automatically.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Reserve size bytes of payload in a ring buffer ringbuf. flags must be 0.
Valid pointer with size bytes of memory available; NULL, otherwise.

Submit reserved ring buffer sample, pointed to by data. If BPF_RB_NO_WAKEUP is specified in flags, no notification of new data availability is sent. If BPF_RB_FORCE_WAKEUP is specified in flags, notification of new data availability is sent unconditionally. If 0 is specified in flags, an adaptive notification of new data availability is sent.

See 'bpf_ringbuf_output()' for the definition of adaptive notification.

Nothing. Always succeeds.

Discard reserved ring buffer sample, pointed to by data. If BPF_RB_NO_WAKEUP is specified in flags, no notification of new data availability is sent. If BPF_RB_FORCE_WAKEUP is specified in flags, notification of new data availability is sent unconditionally. If 0 is specified in flags, an adaptive notification of new data availability is sent.

See 'bpf_ringbuf_output()' for the definition of adaptive notification.

Nothing. Always succeeds.

Query various characteristics of provided ring buffer. What exactly is queries is determined by flags:
  • BPF_RB_AVAIL_DATA: Amount of data not yet consumed.
  • BPF_RB_RING_SIZE: The size of ring buffer.
  • BPF_RB_CONS_POS: Consumer position (can wrap around).
  • BPF_RB_PROD_POS: Producer(s) position (can wrap around).

Data returned is just a momentary snapshot of actual values and could be inaccurate, so this facility should be used to power heuristics and for reporting, not to make 100% correct calculation.

Requested value, or 0, if flags are not recognized.

Change the skbs checksum level by one layer up or down, or reset it entirely to none in order to have the stack perform checksum validation. The level is applicable to the following protocols: TCP, UDP, GRE, SCTP, FCOE. For example, a decap of | ETH | IP | UDP | GUE | IP | TCP | into | ETH | IP | TCP | through bpf_skb_adjust_room() helper with passing in BPF_F_ADJ_ROOM_NO_CSUM_RESET flag would require one call to bpf_csum_level() with BPF_CSUM_LEVEL_DEC since the UDP header is removed. Similarly, an encap of the latter into the former could be accompanied by a helper call to bpf_csum_level() with BPF_CSUM_LEVEL_INC if the skb is still intended to be processed in higher layers of the stack instead of just egressing at tc.

There are three supported level settings at this time:

  • BPF_CSUM_LEVEL_INC: Increases skb->csum_level for skbs with CHECKSUM_UNNECESSARY.
  • BPF_CSUM_LEVEL_DEC: Decreases skb->csum_level for skbs with CHECKSUM_UNNECESSARY.
  • BPF_CSUM_LEVEL_RESET: Resets skb->csum_level to 0 and sets CHECKSUM_NONE to force checksum validation by the stack.
  • BPF_CSUM_LEVEL_QUERY: No-op, returns the current skb->csum_level.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure. In the case of BPF_CSUM_LEVEL_QUERY, the current skb->csum_level is returned or the error code -EACCES in case the skb is not subject to CHECKSUM_UNNECESSARY.

Dynamically cast a sk pointer to a tcp6_sock pointer.
sk if casting is valid, or NULL otherwise.

Dynamically cast a sk pointer to a tcp_sock pointer.
sk if casting is valid, or NULL otherwise.

Dynamically cast a sk pointer to a tcp_timewait_sock pointer.
sk if casting is valid, or NULL otherwise.

Dynamically cast a sk pointer to a tcp_request_sock pointer.
sk if casting is valid, or NULL otherwise.

Dynamically cast a sk pointer to a udp6_sock pointer.
sk if casting is valid, or NULL otherwise.

Return a user or a kernel stack in bpf program provided buffer. To achieve this, the helper needs task, which is a valid pointer to struct task_struct. To store the stacktrace, the bpf program provides buf with a nonnegative size.

The last argument, flags, holds the number of stack frames to skip (from 0 to 255), masked with BPF_F_SKIP_FIELD_MASK. The next bits can be used to set the following flags:

Collect a user space stack instead of a kernel stack.
Collect buildid+offset instead of ips for user stack, only valid if BPF_F_USER_STACK is also specified.

bpf_get_task_stack() can collect up to PERF_MAX_STACK_DEPTH both kernel and user frames, subject to sufficient large buffer size. Note that this limit can be controlled with the sysctl program, and that it should be manually increased in order to profile long user stacks (such as stacks for Java programs). To do so, use:

# sysctl kernel.perf_event_max_stack=<new value>


The non-negative copied buf length equal to or less than size on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Load header option. Support reading a particular TCP header option for bpf program (BPF_PROG_TYPE_SOCK_OPS).

If flags is 0, it will search the option from the skops->skb_data. The comment in struct bpf_sock_ops has details on what skb_data contains under different skops->op.

The first byte of the searchby_res specifies the kind that it wants to search.

If the searching kind is an experimental kind (i.e. 253 or 254 according to RFC6994). It also needs to specify the "magic" which is either 2 bytes or 4 bytes. It then also needs to specify the size of the magic by using the 2nd byte which is "kind-length" of a TCP header option and the "kind-length" also includes the first 2 bytes "kind" and "kind-length" itself as a normal TCP header option also does.

For example, to search experimental kind 254 with 2 byte magic 0xeB9F, the searchby_res should be [ 254, 4, 0xeB, 0x9F, 0, 0, .... 0 ].

To search for the standard window scale option (3), the searchby_res should be [ 3, 0, 0, .... 0 ]. Note, kind-length must be 0 for regular option.

Searching for No-Op (0) and End-of-Option-List (1) are not supported.

len must be at least 2 bytes which is the minimal size of a header option.

Supported flags:

BPF_LOAD_HDR_OPT_TCP_SYN to search from the saved_syn packet or the just-received syn packet.

> 0 when found, the header option is copied to searchby_res. The return value is the total length copied. On failure, a negative error code is returned:

-EINVAL if a parameter is invalid.

-ENOMSG if the option is not found.

-ENOENT if no syn packet is available when BPF_LOAD_HDR_OPT_TCP_SYN is used.

-ENOSPC if there is not enough space. Only len number of bytes are copied.

-EFAULT on failure to parse the header options in the packet.

-EPERM if the helper cannot be used under the current skops->op.


Store header option. The data will be copied from buffer from with length len to the TCP header.

The buffer from should have the whole option that includes the kind, kind-length, and the actual option data. The len must be at least kind-length long. The kind-length does not have to be 4 byte aligned. The kernel will take care of the padding and setting the 4 bytes aligned value to th->doff.

This helper will check for duplicated option by searching the same option in the outgoing skb.

This helper can only be called during BPF_SOCK_OPS_WRITE_HDR_OPT_CB.

0 on success, or negative error in case of failure:

-EINVAL If param is invalid.

-ENOSPC if there is not enough space in the header. Nothing has been written

-EEXIST if the option already exists.

-EFAULT on failure to parse the existing header options.

-EPERM if the helper cannot be used under the current skops->op.


Reserve len bytes for the bpf header option. The space will be used by bpf_store_hdr_opt() later in BPF_SOCK_OPS_WRITE_HDR_OPT_CB.

If bpf_reserve_hdr_opt() is called multiple times, the total number of bytes will be reserved.

This helper can only be called during BPF_SOCK_OPS_HDR_OPT_LEN_CB.

0 on success, or negative error in case of failure:

-EINVAL if a parameter is invalid.

-ENOSPC if there is not enough space in the header.

-EPERM if the helper cannot be used under the current skops->op.


Get a bpf_local_storage from an inode.

Logically, it could be thought of as getting the value from a map with inode as the key. From this perspective, the usage is not much different from bpf_map_lookup_elem(map, &inode) except this helper enforces the key must be an inode and the map must also be a BPF_MAP_TYPE_INODE_STORAGE.

Underneath, the value is stored locally at inode instead of the map. The map is used as the bpf-local-storage "type". The bpf-local-storage "type" (i.e. the map) is searched against all bpf_local_storage residing at inode.

An optional flags (BPF_LOCAL_STORAGE_GET_F_CREATE) can be used such that a new bpf_local_storage will be created if one does not exist. value can be used together with BPF_LOCAL_STORAGE_GET_F_CREATE to specify the initial value of a bpf_local_storage. If value is NULL, the new bpf_local_storage will be zero initialized.

A bpf_local_storage pointer is returned on success.

NULL if not found or there was an error in adding a new bpf_local_storage.


Delete a bpf_local_storage from an inode.
0 on success.

-ENOENT if the bpf_local_storage cannot be found.


Return full path for given struct path object, which needs to be the kernel BTF path object. The path is returned in the provided buffer buf of size sz and is zero terminated.
On success, the strictly positive length of the string, including the trailing NUL character. On error, a negative value.

Read size bytes from user space address user_ptr and store the data in dst. This is a wrapper of copy_from_user().
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Use BTF to store a string representation of ptr->ptr in str, using ptr->type_id. This value should specify the type that ptr->ptr points to. LLVM __builtin_btf_type_id(type, 1) can be used to look up vmlinux BTF type ids. Traversing the data structure using BTF, the type information and values are stored in the first str_size - 1 bytes of str. Safe copy of the pointer data is carried out to avoid kernel crashes during operation. Smaller types can use string space on the stack; larger programs can use map data to store the string representation.

The string can be subsequently shared with userspace via bpf_perf_event_output() or ring buffer interfaces. bpf_trace_printk() is to be avoided as it places too small a limit on string size to be useful.

flags is a combination of

no formatting around type information
no struct/union member names/types
show raw (unobfuscated) pointer values; equivalent to printk specifier %px.
show zero-valued struct/union members; they are not displayed by default

The number of bytes that were written (or would have been written if output had to be truncated due to string size), or a negative error in cases of failure.

Use BTF to write to seq_write a string representation of ptr->ptr, using ptr->type_id as per bpf_snprintf_btf(). flags are identical to those used for bpf_snprintf_btf.
0 on success or a negative error in case of failure.

See bpf_get_cgroup_classid() for the main description. This helper differs from bpf_get_cgroup_classid() in that the cgroup v1 net_cls class is retrieved only from the skb's associated socket instead of the current process.
The id is returned or 0 in case the id could not be retrieved.

Redirect the packet to another net device of index ifindex and fill in L2 addresses from neighboring subsystem. This helper is somewhat similar to bpf_redirect(), except that it populates L2 addresses as well, meaning, internally, the helper relies on the neighbor lookup for the L2 address of the nexthop.

The helper will perform a FIB lookup based on the skb's networking header to get the address of the next hop, unless this is supplied by the caller in the params argument. The plen argument indicates the len of params and should be set to 0 if params is NULL.

The flags argument is reserved and must be 0. The helper is currently only supported for tc BPF program types, and enabled for IPv4 and IPv6 protocols.

The helper returns TC_ACT_REDIRECT on success or TC_ACT_SHOT on error.

Take a pointer to a percpu ksym, percpu_ptr, and return a pointer to the percpu kernel variable on cpu. A ksym is an extern variable decorated with '__ksym'. For ksym, there is a global var (either static or global) defined of the same name in the kernel. The ksym is percpu if the global var is percpu. The returned pointer points to the global percpu var on cpu.

bpf_per_cpu_ptr() has the same semantic as per_cpu_ptr() in the kernel, except that bpf_per_cpu_ptr() may return NULL. This happens if cpu is larger than nr_cpu_ids. The caller of bpf_per_cpu_ptr() must check the returned value.

A pointer pointing to the kernel percpu variable on cpu, or NULL, if cpu is invalid.

Take a pointer to a percpu ksym, percpu_ptr, and return a pointer to the percpu kernel variable on this cpu. See the description of 'ksym' in bpf_per_cpu_ptr().

bpf_this_cpu_ptr() has the same semantic as this_cpu_ptr() in the kernel. Different from bpf_per_cpu_ptr(), it would never return NULL.

A pointer pointing to the kernel percpu variable on this cpu.

Redirect the packet to another net device of index ifindex. This helper is somewhat similar to bpf_redirect(), except that the redirection happens to the ifindex' peer device and the netns switch takes place from ingress to ingress without going through the CPU's backlog queue.

The flags argument is reserved and must be 0. The helper is currently only supported for tc BPF program types at the ingress hook and for veth device types. The peer device must reside in a different network namespace.

The helper returns TC_ACT_REDIRECT on success or TC_ACT_SHOT on error.

Get a bpf_local_storage from the task.

Logically, it could be thought of as getting the value from a map with task as the key. From this perspective, the usage is not much different from bpf_map_lookup_elem(map, &task) except this helper enforces the key must be a task_struct and the map must also be a BPF_MAP_TYPE_TASK_STORAGE.

Underneath, the value is stored locally at task instead of the map. The map is used as the bpf-local-storage "type". The bpf-local-storage "type" (i.e. the map) is searched against all bpf_local_storage residing at task.

An optional flags (BPF_LOCAL_STORAGE_GET_F_CREATE) can be used such that a new bpf_local_storage will be created if one does not exist. value can be used together with BPF_LOCAL_STORAGE_GET_F_CREATE to specify the initial value of a bpf_local_storage. If value is NULL, the new bpf_local_storage will be zero initialized.

A bpf_local_storage pointer is returned on success.

NULL if not found or there was an error in adding a new bpf_local_storage.


Delete a bpf_local_storage from a task.
0 on success.

-ENOENT if the bpf_local_storage cannot be found.


Return a BTF pointer to the "current" task. This pointer can also be used in helpers that accept an ARG_PTR_TO_BTF_ID of type task_struct.
Pointer to the current task.

Set or clear certain options on bprm:

BPF_F_BPRM_SECUREEXEC Set the secureexec bit which sets the AT_SECURE auxv for glibc. The bit is cleared if the flag is not specified.

-EINVAL if invalid flags are passed, zero otherwise.

Return a coarse-grained version of the time elapsed since system boot, in nanoseconds. Does not include time the system was suspended.

See: clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC_COARSE)

Current ktime.

Returns the stored IMA hash of the inode (if it's available). If the hash is larger than size, then only size bytes will be copied to dst
The hash_algo is returned on success, -EOPNOTSUP if IMA is disabled or -EINVAL if invalid arguments are passed.

If the given file represents a socket, returns the associated socket.
A pointer to a struct socket on success or NULL if the file is not a socket.

Check packet size against exceeding MTU of net device (based on ifindex). This helper will likely be used in combination with helpers that adjust/change the packet size.

The argument len_diff can be used for querying with a planned size change. This allows to check MTU prior to changing packet ctx. Providing a len_diff adjustment that is larger than the actual packet size (resulting in negative packet size) will in principle not exceed the MTU, which is why it is not considered a failure. Other BPF helpers are needed for performing the planned size change; therefore the responsibility for catching a negative packet size belongs in those helpers.

Specifying ifindex zero means the MTU check is performed against the current net device. This is practical if this isn't used prior to redirect.

On input mtu_len must be a valid pointer, else verifier will reject BPF program. If the value mtu_len is initialized to zero then the ctx packet size is use. When value mtu_len is provided as input this specify the L3 length that the MTU check is done against. Remember XDP and TC length operate at L2, but this value is L3 as this correlate to MTU and IP-header tot_len values which are L3 (similar behavior as bpf_fib_lookup).

The Linux kernel route table can configure MTUs on a more specific per route level, which is not provided by this helper. For route level MTU checks use the bpf_fib_lookup() helper.

ctx is either struct xdp_md for XDP programs or struct sk_buff for tc cls_act programs.

The flags argument can be a combination of one or more of the following values:

This flag will only works for ctx struct sk_buff. If packet context contains extra packet segment buffers (often knows as GSO skb), then MTU check is harder to check at this point, because in transmit path it is possible for the skb packet to get re-segmented (depending on net device features). This could still be a MTU violation, so this flag enables performing MTU check against segments, with a different violation return code to tell it apart. Check cannot use len_diff.

On return mtu_len pointer contains the MTU value of the net device. Remember the net device configured MTU is the L3 size, which is returned here and XDP and TC length operate at L2. Helper take this into account for you, but remember when using MTU value in your BPF-code.

  • 0 on success, and populate MTU value in mtu_len pointer.
  • < 0 if any input argument is invalid (mtu_len not updated)

MTU violations return positive values, but also populate MTU value in mtu_len pointer, as this can be needed for implementing PMTU handing:

  • BPF_MTU_CHK_RET_FRAG_NEEDED
  • BPF_MTU_CHK_RET_SEGS_TOOBIG


For each element in map, call callback_fn function with map, callback_ctx and other map-specific parameters. The callback_fn should be a static function and the callback_ctx should be a pointer to the stack. The flags is used to control certain aspects of the helper. Currently, the flags must be 0.

The following are a list of supported map types and their respective expected callback signatures:

BPF_MAP_TYPE_HASH, BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERCPU_HASH, BPF_MAP_TYPE_LRU_HASH, BPF_MAP_TYPE_LRU_PERCPU_HASH, BPF_MAP_TYPE_ARRAY, BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERCPU_ARRAY

long (*callback_fn)(struct bpf_map *map, const void *key, void *value, void *ctx);

For per_cpu maps, the map_value is the value on the cpu where the bpf_prog is running.

If callback_fn return 0, the helper will continue to the next element. If return value is 1, the helper will skip the rest of elements and return. Other return values are not used now.

The number of traversed map elements for success, -EINVAL for invalid flags.

Outputs a string into the str buffer of size str_size based on a format string stored in a read-only map pointed by fmt.

Each format specifier in fmt corresponds to one u64 element in the data array. For strings and pointers where pointees are accessed, only the pointer values are stored in the data array. The data_len is the size of data in bytes - must be a multiple of 8.

Formats %s and %p{i,I}{4,6} require to read kernel memory. Reading kernel memory may fail due to either invalid address or valid address but requiring a major memory fault. If reading kernel memory fails, the string for %s will be an empty string, and the ip address for %p{i,I}{4,6} will be 0. Not returning error to bpf program is consistent with what bpf_trace_printk() does for now.

The strictly positive length of the formatted string, including the trailing zero character. If the return value is greater than str_size, str contains a truncated string, guaranteed to be zero-terminated except when str_size is 0.

Or -EBUSY if the per-CPU memory copy buffer is busy.


Execute bpf syscall with given arguments.
A syscall result.

Find BTF type with given name and kind in vmlinux BTF or in module's BTFs.
Returns btf_id and btf_obj_fd in lower and upper 32 bits.

Execute close syscall for given FD.
A syscall result.

Initialize the timer. First 4 bits of flags specify clockid. Only CLOCK_MONOTONIC, CLOCK_REALTIME, CLOCK_BOOTTIME are allowed. All other bits of flags are reserved. The verifier will reject the program if timer is not from the same map.
0 on success. -EBUSY if timer is already initialized. -EINVAL if invalid flags are passed. -EPERM if timer is in a map that doesn't have any user references. The user space should either hold a file descriptor to a map with timers or pin such map in bpffs. When map is unpinned or file descriptor is closed all timers in the map will be cancelled and freed.

Configure the timer to call callback_fn static function.
0 on success. -EINVAL if timer was not initialized with bpf_timer_init() earlier. -EPERM if timer is in a map that doesn't have any user references. The user space should either hold a file descriptor to a map with timers or pin such map in bpffs. When map is unpinned or file descriptor is closed all timers in the map will be cancelled and freed.

Set timer expiration N nanoseconds from the current time. The configured callback will be invoked in soft irq context on some cpu and will not repeat unless another bpf_timer_start() is made. In such case the next invocation can migrate to a different cpu. Since struct bpf_timer is a field inside map element the map owns the timer. The bpf_timer_set_callback() will increment refcnt of BPF program to make sure that callback_fn code stays valid. When user space reference to a map reaches zero all timers in a map are cancelled and corresponding program's refcnts are decremented. This is done to make sure that Ctrl-C of a user process doesn't leave any timers running. If map is pinned in bpffs the callback_fn can re-arm itself indefinitely. bpf_map_update/delete_elem() helpers and user space sys_bpf commands cancel and free the timer in the given map element. The map can contain timers that invoke callback_fn-s from different programs. The same callback_fn can serve different timers from different maps if key/value layout matches across maps. Every bpf_timer_set_callback() can have different callback_fn.
0 on success. -EINVAL if timer was not initialized with bpf_timer_init() earlier or invalid flags are passed.

Cancel the timer and wait for callback_fn to finish if it was running.
0 if the timer was not active. 1 if the timer was active. -EINVAL if timer was not initialized with bpf_timer_init() earlier. -EDEADLK if callback_fn tried to call bpf_timer_cancel() on its own timer which would have led to a deadlock otherwise.

Get address of the traced function (for tracing and kprobe programs).
Address of the traced function. 0 for kprobes placed within the function (not at the entry).

Get bpf_cookie value provided (optionally) during the program attachment. It might be different for each individual attachment, even if BPF program itself is the same. Expects BPF program context ctx as a first argument.
  • kprobe/uprobe;
  • tracepoint;
  • perf_event.


Value specified by user at BPF link creation/attachment time or 0, if it was not specified.

Get the struct pt_regs associated with task.
A pointer to struct pt_regs.

Get branch trace from hardware engines like Intel LBR. The hardware engine is stopped shortly after the helper is called. Therefore, the user need to filter branch entries based on the actual use case. To capture branch trace before the trigger point of the BPF program, the helper should be called at the beginning of the BPF program.

The data is stored as struct perf_branch_entry into output buffer entries. size is the size of entries in bytes. flags is reserved for now and must be zero.

On success, number of bytes written to buf. On error, a negative value.

-EINVAL if flags is not zero.

-ENOENT if architecture does not support branch records.


Behaves like bpf_trace_printk() helper, but takes an array of u64 to format and can handle more format args as a result.

Arguments are to be used as in bpf_seq_printf() helper.

The number of bytes written to the buffer, or a negative error in case of failure.

Dynamically cast a sk pointer to a unix_sock pointer.
sk if casting is valid, or NULL otherwise.

Get the address of a kernel symbol, returned in res. res is set to 0 if the symbol is not found.
On success, zero. On error, a negative value.

-EINVAL if flags is not zero.

-EINVAL if string name is not the same size as name_sz.

-ENOENT if symbol is not found.

-EPERM if caller does not have permission to obtain kernel address.


Find vma of task that contains addr, call callback_fn function with task, vma, and callback_ctx. The callback_fn should be a static function and the callback_ctx should be a pointer to the stack. The flags is used to control certain aspects of the helper. Currently, the flags must be 0.

The expected callback signature is

long (*callback_fn)(struct task_struct *task, struct vm_area_struct *vma, void *callback_ctx);

0 on success. -ENOENT if task->mm is NULL, or no vma contains addr. -EBUSY if failed to try lock mmap_lock. -EINVAL for invalid flags.

For nr_loops, call callback_fn function with callback_ctx as the context parameter. The callback_fn should be a static function and the callback_ctx should be a pointer to the stack. The flags is used to control certain aspects of the helper. Currently, the flags must be 0. Currently, nr_loops is limited to 1 << 23 (~8 million) loops.

long (*callback_fn)(u32 index, void *ctx);

where index is the current index in the loop. The index is zero-indexed.

If callback_fn returns 0, the helper will continue to the next loop. If return value is 1, the helper will skip the rest of the loops and return. Other return values are not used now, and will be rejected by the verifier.

The number of loops performed, -EINVAL for invalid flags, -E2BIG if nr_loops exceeds the maximum number of loops.

Do strncmp() between s1 and s2. s1 doesn't need to be null-terminated and s1_sz is the maximum storage size of s1. s2 must be a read-only string.
An integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero if the first s1_sz bytes of s1 is found to be less than, to match, or be greater than s2.

Get n-th argument register (zero based) of the traced function (for tracing programs) returned in value.
0 on success. -EINVAL if n >= argument register count of traced function.

Get return value of the traced function (for tracing programs) in value.
0 on success. -EOPNOTSUPP for tracing programs other than BPF_TRACE_FEXIT or BPF_MODIFY_RETURN.

Get number of registers of the traced function (for tracing programs) where function arguments are stored in these registers.
The number of argument registers of the traced function.

Get the BPF program's return value that will be returned to the upper layers.

This helper is currently supported by cgroup programs and only by the hooks where BPF program's return value is returned to the userspace via errno.

The BPF program's return value.

Set the BPF program's return value that will be returned to the upper layers.

This helper is currently supported by cgroup programs and only by the hooks where BPF program's return value is returned to the userspace via errno.

Note that there is the following corner case where the program exports an error via bpf_set_retval but signals success via 'return 1':

bpf_set_retval(-EPERM); return 1;


In this case, the BPF program's return value will use helper's -EPERM. This still holds true for cgroup/bind{4,6} which supports extra 'return 3' success case.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Get the total size of a given xdp buff (linear and paged area)
The total size of a given xdp buffer.

This helper is provided as an easy way to load data from a xdp buffer. It can be used to load len bytes from offset from the frame associated to xdp_md, into the buffer pointed by buf.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Store len bytes from buffer buf into the frame associated to xdp_md, at offset.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Read size bytes from user space address user_ptr in tsk's address space, and stores the data in dst. flags is not used yet and is provided for future extensibility. This helper can only be used by sleepable programs.
0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure. On error dst buffer is zeroed out.

Change the __sk_buff->tstamp_type to tstamp_type and set tstamp to the __sk_buff->tstamp together.

If there is no need to change the __sk_buff->tstamp_type, the tstamp value can be directly written to __sk_buff->tstamp instead.

BPF_SKB_TSTAMP_DELIVERY_MONO is the only tstamp that will be kept during bpf_redirect_*(). A non zero tstamp must be used with the BPF_SKB_TSTAMP_DELIVERY_MONO tstamp_type.

A BPF_SKB_TSTAMP_UNSPEC tstamp_type can only be used with a zero tstamp.

Only IPv4 and IPv6 skb->protocol are supported.

This function is most useful when it needs to set a mono delivery time to __sk_buff->tstamp and then bpf_redirect_*() to the egress of an iface. For example, changing the (rcv) timestamp in __sk_buff->tstamp at ingress to a mono delivery time and then bpf_redirect_*() to sch_fq@phy-dev.

0 on success. -EINVAL for invalid input -EOPNOTSUPP for unsupported protocol

Returns a calculated IMA hash of the file. If the hash is larger than size, then only size bytes will be copied to dst
The hash_algo is returned on success, -EOPNOTSUP if the hash calculation failed or -EINVAL if invalid arguments are passed.

Exchange kptr at pointer map_value with ptr, and return the old value. ptr can be NULL, otherwise it must be a referenced pointer which will be released when this helper is called.
The old value of kptr (which can be NULL). The returned pointer if not NULL, is a reference which must be released using its corresponding release function, or moved into a BPF map before program exit.

Perform a lookup in percpu map for an entry associated to key on cpu.
Map value associated to key on cpu, or NULL if no entry was found or cpu is invalid.

Dynamically cast a sk pointer to a mptcp_sock pointer.
sk if casting is valid, or NULL otherwise.

Get a dynptr to local memory data.

data must be a ptr to a map value. The maximum size supported is DYNPTR_MAX_SIZE. flags is currently unused.

0 on success, -E2BIG if the size exceeds DYNPTR_MAX_SIZE, -EINVAL if flags is not 0.

Reserve size bytes of payload in a ring buffer ringbuf through the dynptr interface. flags must be 0.

Please note that a corresponding bpf_ringbuf_submit_dynptr or bpf_ringbuf_discard_dynptr must be called on ptr, even if the reservation fails. This is enforced by the verifier.

0 on success, or a negative error in case of failure.

Submit reserved ring buffer sample, pointed to by data, through the dynptr interface. This is a no-op if the dynptr is invalid/null.

For more information on flags, please see 'bpf_ringbuf_submit'.

Nothing. Always succeeds.

Discard reserved ring buffer sample through the dynptr interface. This is a no-op if the dynptr is invalid/null.

For more information on flags, please see 'bpf_ringbuf_discard'.

Nothing. Always succeeds.

Read len bytes from src into dst, starting from offset into src. flags is currently unused.
0 on success, -E2BIG if offset + len exceeds the length of src's data, -EINVAL if src is an invalid dynptr or if flags is not 0.

Write len bytes from src into dst, starting from offset into dst. flags is currently unused.
0 on success, -E2BIG if offset + len exceeds the length of dst's data, -EINVAL if dst is an invalid dynptr or if dst is a read-only dynptr or if flags is not 0.

Get a pointer to the underlying dynptr data.

len must be a statically known value. The returned data slice is invalidated whenever the dynptr is invalidated.

Pointer to the underlying dynptr data, NULL if the dynptr is read-only, if the dynptr is invalid, or if the offset and length is out of bounds.

Try to issue a SYN cookie for the packet with corresponding IPv4/TCP headers, iph and th, without depending on a listening socket.

iph points to the IPv4 header.

th points to the start of the TCP header, while th_len contains the length of the TCP header (at least sizeof(struct tcphdr)).

On success, lower 32 bits hold the generated SYN cookie in followed by 16 bits which hold the MSS value for that cookie, and the top 16 bits are unused.

On failure, the returned value is one of the following:

-EINVAL if th_len is invalid.


Try to issue a SYN cookie for the packet with corresponding IPv6/TCP headers, iph and th, without depending on a listening socket.

iph points to the IPv6 header.

th points to the start of the TCP header, while th_len contains the length of the TCP header (at least sizeof(struct tcphdr)).

On success, lower 32 bits hold the generated SYN cookie in followed by 16 bits which hold the MSS value for that cookie, and the top 16 bits are unused.

On failure, the returned value is one of the following:

-EINVAL if th_len is invalid.

-EPROTONOSUPPORT if CONFIG_IPV6 is not builtin.


Check whether iph and th contain a valid SYN cookie ACK without depending on a listening socket.

iph points to the IPv4 header.

th points to the TCP header.

0 if iph and th are a valid SYN cookie ACK.

On failure, the returned value is one of the following:

-EACCES if the SYN cookie is not valid.


Check whether iph and th contain a valid SYN cookie ACK without depending on a listening socket.

iph points to the IPv6 header.

th points to the TCP header.

0 if iph and th are a valid SYN cookie ACK.

On failure, the returned value is one of the following:

-EACCES if the SYN cookie is not valid.

-EPROTONOSUPPORT if CONFIG_IPV6 is not builtin.


A nonsettable system-wide clock derived from wall-clock time but ignoring leap seconds. This clock does not experience discontinuities and backwards jumps caused by NTP inserting leap seconds as CLOCK_REALTIME does.

See: clock_gettime(CLOCK_TAI)

Current ktime.

Drain samples from the specified user ring buffer, and invoke the provided callback for each such sample:

long (*callback_fn)(const struct bpf_dynptr *dynptr, void *ctx);

If callback_fn returns 0, the helper will continue to try and drain the next sample, up to a maximum of BPF_MAX_USER_RINGBUF_SAMPLES samples. If the return value is 1, the helper will skip the rest of the samples and return. Other return values are not used now, and will be rejected by the verifier.

The number of drained samples if no error was encountered while draining samples, or 0 if no samples were present in the ring buffer. If a user-space producer was epoll-waiting on this map, and at least one sample was drained, they will receive an event notification notifying them of available space in the ring buffer. If the BPF_RB_NO_WAKEUP flag is passed to this function, no wakeup notification will be sent. If the BPF_RB_FORCE_WAKEUP flag is passed, a wakeup notification will be sent even if no sample was drained.

On failure, the returned value is one of the following:

-EBUSY if the ring buffer is contended, and another calling context was concurrently draining the ring buffer.

-EINVAL if user-space is not properly tracking the ring buffer due to the producer position not being aligned to 8 bytes, a sample not being aligned to 8 bytes, or the producer position not matching the advertised length of a sample.

-E2BIG if user-space has tried to publish a sample which is larger than the size of the ring buffer, or which cannot fit within a struct bpf_dynptr.


Get a bpf_local_storage from the cgroup.

Logically, it could be thought of as getting the value from a map with cgroup as the key. From this perspective, the usage is not much different from bpf_map_lookup_elem(map, &cgroup) except this helper enforces the key must be a cgroup struct and the map must also be a BPF_MAP_TYPE_CGRP_STORAGE.

In reality, the local-storage value is embedded directly inside of the cgroup object itself, rather than being located in the BPF_MAP_TYPE_CGRP_STORAGE map. When the local-storage value is queried for some map on a cgroup object, the kernel will perform an O(n) iteration over all of the live local-storage values for that cgroup object until the local-storage value for the map is found.

An optional flags (BPF_LOCAL_STORAGE_GET_F_CREATE) can be used such that a new bpf_local_storage will be created if one does not exist. value can be used together with BPF_LOCAL_STORAGE_GET_F_CREATE to specify the initial value of a bpf_local_storage. If value is NULL, the new bpf_local_storage will be zero initialized.

A bpf_local_storage pointer is returned on success.

NULL if not found or there was an error in adding a new bpf_local_storage.


Delete a bpf_local_storage from a cgroup.
0 on success.

-ENOENT if the bpf_local_storage cannot be found.



EXAMPLES

Example usage for most of the eBPF helpers listed in this manual page are available within the Linux kernel sources, at the following locations:

  • samples/bpf/
  • tools/testing/selftests/bpf/

LICENSE

eBPF programs can have an associated license, passed along with the bytecode instructions to the kernel when the programs are loaded. The format for that string is identical to the one in use for kernel modules (Dual licenses, such as "Dual BSD/GPL", may be used). Some helper functions are only accessible to programs that are compatible with the GNU Privacy License (GPL).

In order to use such helpers, the eBPF program must be loaded with the correct license string passed (via attr) to the bpf() system call, and this generally translates into the C source code of the program containing a line similar to the following:

char ____license[] __attribute__((section("license"), used)) = "GPL";


IMPLEMENTATION

This manual page is an effort to document the existing eBPF helper functions. But as of this writing, the BPF sub-system is under heavy development. New eBPF program or map types are added, along with new helper functions. Some helpers are occasionally made available for additional program types. So in spite of the efforts of the community, this page might not be up-to-date. If you want to check by yourself what helper functions exist in your kernel, or what types of programs they can support, here are some files among the kernel tree that you may be interested in:

  • include/uapi/linux/bpf.h is the main BPF header. It contains the full list of all helper functions, as well as many other BPF definitions including most of the flags, structs or constants used by the helpers.
  • net/core/filter.c contains the definition of most network-related helper functions, and the list of program types from which they can be used.
  • kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c is the equivalent for most tracing program-related helpers.
  • kernel/bpf/verifier.c contains the functions used to check that valid types of eBPF maps are used with a given helper function.
  • kernel/bpf/ directory contains other files in which additional helpers are defined (for cgroups, sockmaps, etc.).
  • The bpftool utility can be used to probe the availability of helper functions on the system (as well as supported program and map types, and a number of other parameters). To do so, run bpftool feature probe (see bpftool-feature(8) for details). Add the unprivileged keyword to list features available to unprivileged users.

Compatibility between helper functions and program types can generally be found in the files where helper functions are defined. Look for the struct bpf_func_proto objects and for functions returning them: these functions contain a list of helpers that a given program type can call. Note that the default: label of the switch ... case used to filter helpers can call other functions, themselves allowing access to additional helpers. The requirement for GPL license is also in those struct bpf_func_proto.

Compatibility between helper functions and map types can be found in the check_map_func_compatibility() function in file kernel/bpf/verifier.c.

Helper functions that invalidate the checks on data and data_end pointers for network processing are listed in function bpf_helper_changes_pkt_data() in file net/core/filter.c.

SEE ALSO

bpf(2), bpftool(8), cgroups(7), ip(8), perf_event_open(2), sendmsg(2), socket(7), tc-bpf(8)

2023-04-11 Linux v6.2