Document the verifier limits. Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@xxxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/bpf/bpf_design_QA.rst | 29 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/bpf/bpf_design_QA.rst b/Documentation/bpf/bpf_design_QA.rst index 10453c627135..cb402c59eca5 100644 --- a/Documentation/bpf/bpf_design_QA.rst +++ b/Documentation/bpf/bpf_design_QA.rst @@ -85,8 +85,33 @@ Q: Can loops be supported in a safe way? A: It's not clear yet. BPF developers are trying to find a way to -support bounded loops where the verifier can guarantee that -the program terminates in less than 4096 instructions. +support bounded loops. + +Q: What are the verifier limits? +-------------------------------- +A: The only limit known to the user space is BPF_MAXINSNS (4096). +It's the maximum number of instructions that the unprivileged bpf +program can have. The verifier has various internal limits. +Like the maximum number of instructions that can be explored during +program analysis. Currently, that limit is set to 1 million. +Which essentially means that the largest program can consist +of 1 million NOP instructions. There is a limit to the maximum number +of subsequent branches, a limit to the number of nested bpf-to-bpf +calls, a limit to the number of the verifier states per instruction, +a limit to the number of maps used by the program. +All these limits can be hit with a sufficiently complex program. +There are also non-numerical limits that can cause the program +to be rejected. The verifier used to recognize only pointer + constant +expressions. Now it can recognize pointer + bounded_register. +bpf_lookup_map_elem(key) had a requirement that 'key' must be +a pointer to the stack. Now, 'key' can be a pointer to map value. +The verifier is steadily getting 'smarter'. The limits are +being removed. The only way to know that the program is going to +be accepted by the verifier is to try to load it. +The bpf development process guarantees that the future kernel +versions will accept all bpf programs that were accepted by +the earlier versions. + Instruction level questions --------------------------- -- 2.20.0
