This series adds support for executing multiple XDP programs on a single interface in sequence, through the use of chain calls, as discussed at the Linux Plumbers Conference last month: https://linuxplumbersconf.org/event/4/contributions/460/ # HIGH-LEVEL IDEA Since Alexei pointed out some issues with trying to rewrite the eBPF byte code, let's try a third approach: We add the ability to chain call programs into the eBPF execution core itself, but without rewriting the eBPF byte code. As in the previous version, the bpf() syscall gets a couple of new commands which takes a pair of BPF program fds and a return code. It will then attach the second program to the first one in a structured keyed by return code. When a program chain is thus established, the former program will tail call to the latter at the end of its execution. The actual tail calling is achieved by adding a new flag to struct bpf_prog and having BPF_PROG_RUN run the chain call logic if that flag is set. This means that if the feature is *not* used, the overhead is a single conditional branch (which means I couldn't measure a performance difference, as can be seen in the results below). For this version I kept the load-time flag from the previous version, to avoid having to remove the read-only memory protection from the bpf prog. Only programs loaded with this flag set can have other programs attached to them for chain calls. As before, it shouldn't be necessary to set the flag on program load time, but rather we should enable the feature when a chain call program is first loaded. We could conceivably just remove the RO property from the first page of struct bpf_prog and set the flag as needed. # PERFORMANCE I performed a simple performance test to get an initial feel for the overhead of the chain call mechanism. This test consists of running only two programs in sequence: One that returns XDP_PASS and another that returns XDP_DROP. I then measure the drop PPS performance and compare it to a baseline of just a single program that only returns XDP_DROP. For comparison, a test case that uses regular eBPF tail calls to sequence two programs together is also included. | Test case | Perf | Overhead | |----------------------------------+-----------+----------| | Before patch (XDP DROP program) | 31.5 Mpps | | | After patch (XDP DROP program) | 32.0 Mpps | | | XDP chain call (XDP_PASS return) | 28.5 Mpps | 3.8 ns | | XDP chain call (wildcard return) | 28.1 Mpps | 4.3 ns | I consider the "Before patch" and "After patch" to be identical; the .5 Mpps difference is within the regular test variance I see between runs. Likewise, there is probably no significant difference between hooking the XDP_PASS return code and using the wildcard slot. # PATCH SET STRUCTURE This series is structured as follows: - Patch 1: Adds the call chain looping logic - Patch 2: Adds the new commands added to the bpf() syscall - Patch 3-4: Tools/ update and libbpf syscall wrappers - Patch 5: Selftest with example user space code (a bit hacky still) The whole series is also available in my git repo on kernel.org: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/toke/linux.git/log/?h=xdp-multiprog-03 Changelog: v3: - Keep the UAPI from v2, but change the implementation to hook into BPF_PROG_RUN instead of trying to inject instructions into the eBPF program itself (since that had problems as Alexei pointed out). v2: - Completely new approach that integrates chain calls into the core eBPF runtime instead of doing the map XDP-specific thing with a new map from v1. --- Toke Høiland-Jørgensen (5): bpf: Support chain calling multiple BPF programs after each other bpf: Add support for setting chain call sequence for programs tools: Update bpf.h header for program chain calls libbpf: Add syscall wrappers for BPF_PROG_CHAIN_* commands selftests: Add tests for XDP chain calls include/linux/bpf.h | 3 include/linux/filter.h | 34 +++ include/uapi/linux/bpf.h | 16 + kernel/bpf/core.c | 6 kernel/bpf/syscall.c | 82 ++++++- tools/include/uapi/linux/bpf.h | 16 + tools/lib/bpf/bpf.c | 34 +++ tools/lib/bpf/bpf.h | 4 tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.map | 3 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/.gitignore | 1 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/Makefile | 3 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/progs/xdp_dummy.c | 6 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/test_xdp_chain.sh | 77 ++++++ tools/testing/selftests/bpf/xdp_chain.c | 313 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 14 files changed, 594 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) create mode 100755 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/test_xdp_chain.sh create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/xdp_chain.c
