Debugging and Testing

bpftool

bpftool is the main introspection and debugging tool around BPF and developed and shipped along with the Linux kernel tree under tools/bpf/bpftool/.

The tool can dump all BPF programs and maps that are currently loaded in the system, or list and correlate all BPF maps used by a specific program. Furthermore, it allows to dump the entire map’s key / value pairs, or lookup, update, delete individual ones as well as retrieve a key’s neighbor key in the map. Such operations can be performed based on BPF program or map IDs or by specifying the location of a BPF file system pinned program or map. The tool additionally also offers an option to pin maps or programs into the BPF file system.

For a quick overview of all BPF programs currently loaded on the host invoke the following command:

# bpftool prog
398: sched_cls  tag 56207908be8ad877
   loaded_at Apr 09/16:24  uid 0
   xlated 8800B  jited 6184B  memlock 12288B  map_ids 18,5,17,14
399: sched_cls  tag abc95fb4835a6ec9
   loaded_at Apr 09/16:24  uid 0
   xlated 344B  jited 223B  memlock 4096B  map_ids 18
400: sched_cls  tag afd2e542b30ff3ec
   loaded_at Apr 09/16:24  uid 0
   xlated 1720B  jited 1001B  memlock 4096B  map_ids 17
401: sched_cls  tag 2dbbd74ee5d51cc8
   loaded_at Apr 09/16:24  uid 0
   xlated 3728B  jited 2099B  memlock 4096B  map_ids 17
[...]

Similarly, to get an overview of all active maps:

# bpftool map
5: hash  flags 0x0
    key 20B  value 112B  max_entries 65535  memlock 13111296B
6: hash  flags 0x0
    key 20B  value 20B  max_entries 65536  memlock 7344128B
7: hash  flags 0x0
    key 10B  value 16B  max_entries 8192  memlock 790528B
8: hash  flags 0x0
    key 22B  value 28B  max_entries 8192  memlock 987136B
9: hash  flags 0x0
    key 20B  value 8B  max_entries 512000  memlock 49352704B
[...]

Note that for each command, bpftool also supports json based output by appending --json at the end of the command line. An additional --pretty improves the output to be more human readable.

# bpftool prog --json --pretty

For dumping the post-verifier BPF instruction image of a specific BPF program, one starting point could be to inspect a specific program, e.g. attached to the tc ingress hook:

# tc filter show dev cilium_host egress
filter protocol all pref 1 bpf chain 0
filter protocol all pref 1 bpf chain 0 handle 0x1 bpf_host.o:[from-netdev] \
                    direct-action not_in_hw id 406 tag e0362f5bd9163a0a jited

The program from the object file bpf_host.o, section from-netdev has a BPF program ID of 406 as denoted in id 406. Based on this information bpftool can provide some high-level metadata specific to the program:

# bpftool prog show id 406
406: sched_cls  tag e0362f5bd9163a0a
     loaded_at Apr 09/16:24  uid 0
     xlated 11144B  jited 7721B  memlock 12288B  map_ids 18,20,8,5,6,14

The program of ID 406 is of type sched_cls (BPF_PROG_TYPE_SCHED_CLS), has a tag of e0362f5bd9163a0a (SHA sum over the instruction sequence), it was loaded by root uid 0 on Apr 09/16:24. The BPF instruction sequence is 11,144 bytes long and the JITed image 7,721 bytes. The program itself (excluding maps) consumes 12,288 bytes that are accounted / charged against user uid 0. And the BPF program uses the BPF maps with IDs 18, 20, 8, 5, 6 and 14. The latter IDs can further be used to get information or dump the map themselves.

Additionally, bpftool can issue a dump request of the BPF instructions the program runs:

# bpftool prog dump xlated id 406
 0: (b7) r7 = 0
 1: (63) *(u32 *)(r1 +60) = r7
 2: (63) *(u32 *)(r1 +56) = r7
 3: (63) *(u32 *)(r1 +52) = r7
[...]
47: (bf) r4 = r10
48: (07) r4 += -40
49: (79) r6 = *(u64 *)(r10 -104)
50: (bf) r1 = r6
51: (18) r2 = map[id:18]                    <-- BPF map id 18
53: (b7) r5 = 32
54: (85) call bpf_skb_event_output#5656112  <-- BPF helper call
55: (69) r1 = *(u16 *)(r6 +192)
[...]

bpftool correlates BPF map IDs into the instruction stream as shown above as well as calls to BPF helpers or other BPF programs.

The instruction dump reuses the same ‘pretty-printer’ as the kernel’s BPF verifier. Since the program was JITed and therefore the actual JIT image that was generated out of above xlated instructions is executed, it can be dumped as well through bpftool:

# bpftool prog dump jited id 406
 0:        push   %rbp
 1:        mov    %rsp,%rbp
 4:        sub    $0x228,%rsp
 b:        sub    $0x28,%rbp
 f:        mov    %rbx,0x0(%rbp)
13:        mov    %r13,0x8(%rbp)
17:        mov    %r14,0x10(%rbp)
1b:        mov    %r15,0x18(%rbp)
1f:        xor    %eax,%eax
21:        mov    %rax,0x20(%rbp)
25:        mov    0x80(%rdi),%r9d
[...]

Mainly for BPF JIT developers, the option also exists to interleave the disassembly with the actual native opcodes:

# bpftool prog dump jited id 406 opcodes
 0:        push   %rbp
           55
 1:        mov    %rsp,%rbp
           48 89 e5
 4:        sub    $0x228,%rsp
           48 81 ec 28 02 00 00
 b:        sub    $0x28,%rbp
           48 83 ed 28
 f:        mov    %rbx,0x0(%rbp)
           48 89 5d 00
13:        mov    %r13,0x8(%rbp)
           4c 89 6d 08
17:        mov    %r14,0x10(%rbp)
           4c 89 75 10
1b:        mov    %r15,0x18(%rbp)
           4c 89 7d 18
[...]

The same interleaving can be done for the normal BPF instructions which can sometimes be useful for debugging in the kernel:

# bpftool prog dump xlated id 406 opcodes
 0: (b7) r7 = 0
    b7 07 00 00 00 00 00 00
 1: (63) *(u32 *)(r1 +60) = r7
    63 71 3c 00 00 00 00 00
 2: (63) *(u32 *)(r1 +56) = r7
    63 71 38 00 00 00 00 00
 3: (63) *(u32 *)(r1 +52) = r7
    63 71 34 00 00 00 00 00
 4: (63) *(u32 *)(r1 +48) = r7
    63 71 30 00 00 00 00 00
 5: (63) *(u32 *)(r1 +64) = r7
    63 71 40 00 00 00 00 00
 [...]

The basic blocks of a program can also be visualized with the help of graphviz. For this purpose bpftool has a visual dump mode that generates a dot file instead of the plain BPF xlated instruction dump that can later be converted to a png file:

# bpftool prog dump xlated id 406 visual &> output.dot
$ dot -Tpng output.dot -o output.png

Another option would be to pass the dot file to dotty as a viewer, that is dotty output.dot, where the result for the bpf_host.o program looks as follows (small extract):

../../_images/bpf_dot.png

Note that the xlated instruction dump provides the post-verifier BPF instruction image which means that it dumps the instructions as if they were to be run through the BPF interpreter. In the kernel, the verifier performs various rewrites of the original instructions provided by the BPF loader.

One example of rewrites is the inlining of helper functions in order to improve runtime performance, here in the case of a map lookup for hash tables:

# bpftool prog dump xlated id 3
 0: (b7) r1 = 2
 1: (63) *(u32 *)(r10 -4) = r1
 2: (bf) r2 = r10
 3: (07) r2 += -4
 4: (18) r1 = map[id:2]                      <-- BPF map id 2
 6: (85) call __htab_map_lookup_elem#77408   <-+ BPF helper inlined rewrite
 7: (15) if r0 == 0x0 goto pc+2                |
 8: (07) r0 += 56                              |
 9: (79) r0 = *(u64 *)(r0 +0)                <-+
10: (15) if r0 == 0x0 goto pc+24
11: (bf) r2 = r10
12: (07) r2 += -4
[...]

bpftool correlates calls to helper functions or BPF to BPF calls through kallsyms. Therefore, make sure that JITed BPF programs are exposed to kallsyms (bpf_jit_kallsyms) and that kallsyms addresses are not obfuscated (calls are otherwise shown as call bpf_unspec#0):

# echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/kptr_restrict
# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_kallsyms

BPF to BPF calls are correlated as well for both, interpreter as well as JIT case. In the latter, the tag of the subprogram is shown as call target. In each case, the pc+2 is the pc-relative offset of the call target, which denotes the subprogram.

# bpftool prog dump xlated id 1
0: (85) call pc+2#__bpf_prog_run_args32
1: (b7) r0 = 1
2: (95) exit
3: (b7) r0 = 2
4: (95) exit

JITed variant of the dump:

# bpftool prog dump xlated id 1
0: (85) call pc+2#bpf_prog_3b185187f1855c4c_F
1: (b7) r0 = 1
2: (95) exit
3: (b7) r0 = 2
4: (95) exit

In the case of tail calls, the kernel maps them into a single instruction internally, bpftool will still correlate them as a helper call for ease of debugging:

# bpftool prog dump xlated id 2
[...]
10: (b7) r2 = 8
11: (85) call bpf_trace_printk#-41312
12: (bf) r1 = r6
13: (18) r2 = map[id:1]
15: (b7) r3 = 0
16: (85) call bpf_tail_call#12
17: (b7) r1 = 42
18: (6b) *(u16 *)(r6 +46) = r1
19: (b7) r0 = 0
20: (95) exit

# bpftool map show id 1
1: prog_array  flags 0x0
      key 4B  value 4B  max_entries 1  memlock 4096B

Dumping an entire map is possible through the map dump subcommand which iterates through all present map elements and dumps the key / value pairs.

If no BTF (BPF Type Format) data is available for a given map, then the key / value pairs are dumped as hex:

# bpftool map dump id 5
key:
f0 0d 00 00 00 00 00 00  0a 66 00 00 00 00 8a d6
02 00 00 00
value:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
key:
0a 66 1c ee 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
01 00 00 00
value:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
[...]
Found 6 elements

However, with BTF, the map also holds debugging information about the key and value structures. For example, BTF in combination with BPF maps and the BPF_ANNOTATE_KV_PAIR() macro from iproute2 will result in the following dump (test_xdp_noinline.o from kernel selftests):

# cat tools/testing/selftests/bpf/test_xdp_noinline.c
  [...]
   struct ctl_value {
         union {
                 __u64 value;
                 __u32 ifindex;
                 __u8 mac[6];
         };
   };

   struct bpf_map_def __attribute__ ((section("maps"), used)) ctl_array = {
          .type            = BPF_MAP_TYPE_ARRAY,
          .key_size        = sizeof(__u32),
          .value_size      = sizeof(struct ctl_value),
          .max_entries     = 16,
          .map_flags       = 0,
   };
   BPF_ANNOTATE_KV_PAIR(ctl_array, __u32, struct ctl_value);

   [...]

The BPF_ANNOTATE_KV_PAIR() macro forces a map-specific ELF section containing an empty key and value, this enables the iproute2 BPF loader to correlate BTF data with that section and thus allows to choose the corresponding types out of the BTF for loading the map.

Compiling through LLVM and generating BTF through debugging information by pahole:

# clang [...] -O2 --target=bpf -g -emit-llvm -c test_xdp_noinline.c -o - |
  llc -march=bpf -mcpu=probe -mattr=dwarfris -filetype=obj -o test_xdp_noinline.o
# pahole -J test_xdp_noinline.o

Now loading into kernel and dumping the map via bpftool:

# ip -force link set dev lo xdp obj test_xdp_noinline.o sec xdp-test
# ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 xdpgeneric/id:227 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
[...]
# bpftool prog show id 227
227: xdp  tag a85e060c275c5616  gpl
    loaded_at 2018-07-17T14:41:29+0000  uid 0
    xlated 8152B  not jited  memlock 12288B  map_ids 381,385,386,382,384,383
# bpftool map dump id 386
 [{
      "key": 0,
      "value": {
          "": {
              "value": 0,
              "ifindex": 0,
              "mac": []
          }
      }
  },{
      "key": 1,
      "value": {
          "": {
              "value": 0,
              "ifindex": 0,
              "mac": []
          }
      }
  },{
[...]

Lookup, update, delete, and ‘get next key’ operations on the map for specific keys can be performed through bpftool as well.

If the BPF program has been successfully loaded with BTF debugging information, the BTF ID will be shown in prog show command result denoted in btf_id.

# bpftool prog show id 72
72: xdp  name balancer_ingres  tag acf44cabb48385ed  gpl
   loaded_at 2020-04-13T23:12:08+0900  uid 0
   xlated 19104B  jited 10732B  memlock 20480B  map_ids 126,130,131,127,129,128
   btf_id 60

This can also be confirmed with btf show command which dumps all BTF objects loaded on a system.

# bpftool btf show
60: size 12243B  prog_ids 72  map_ids 126,130,131,127,129,128

And the subcommand btf dump can be used to check which debugging information is included in the BTF. With this command, BTF dump can be formatted either ‘raw’ or ‘c’, the one that is used in C code.

# bpftool btf dump id 60 format c
  [...]
   struct ctl_value {
         union {
                 __u64 value;
                 __u32 ifindex;
                 __u8 mac[6];
         };
   };

   typedef unsigned int u32;
   [...]

Video

To learn more about bpftool, check out eCHO episode 11: Exploring bpftool with Quentin Monnet, maintainer of bpftool.

Kernel Testing

The Linux kernel ships a BPF selftest suite, which can be found in the kernel source tree under tools/testing/selftests/bpf/.

$ cd tools/testing/selftests/bpf/
$ make
# make run_tests

The test suite contains test cases against the BPF verifier, program tags, various tests against the BPF map interface and map types. It contains various runtime tests from C code for checking LLVM back end, and eBPF as well as cBPF asm code that is run in the kernel for testing the interpreter and JITs.

JIT Debugging

For JIT developers performing audits or writing extensions, each compile run can output the generated JIT image into the kernel log through:

# echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable

Whenever a new BPF program is loaded, the JIT compiler will dump the output, which can then be inspected with dmesg, for example:

[ 3389.935842] flen=6 proglen=70 pass=3 image=ffffffffa0069c8f from=tcpdump pid=20583
[ 3389.935847] JIT code: 00000000: 55 48 89 e5 48 83 ec 60 48 89 5d f8 44 8b 4f 68
[ 3389.935849] JIT code: 00000010: 44 2b 4f 6c 4c 8b 87 d8 00 00 00 be 0c 00 00 00
[ 3389.935850] JIT code: 00000020: e8 1d 94 ff e0 3d 00 08 00 00 75 16 be 17 00 00
[ 3389.935851] JIT code: 00000030: 00 e8 28 94 ff e0 83 f8 01 75 07 b8 ff ff 00 00
[ 3389.935852] JIT code: 00000040: eb 02 31 c0 c9 c3

flen is the length of the BPF program (here, 6 BPF instructions), and proglen tells the number of bytes generated by the JIT for the opcode image (here, 70 bytes in size). pass means that the image was generated in 3 compiler passes, for example, x86_64 can have various optimization passes to further reduce the image size when possible. image contains the address of the generated JIT image, from and pid the user space application name and PID respectively, which triggered the compilation process. The dump output for eBPF and cBPF JITs is the same format.

In the kernel tree under tools/bpf/, there is a tool called bpf_jit_disasm. It reads out the latest dump and prints the disassembly for further inspection:

# ./bpf_jit_disasm
70 bytes emitted from JIT compiler (pass:3, flen:6)
ffffffffa0069c8f + <x>:
   0:       push   %rbp
   1:       mov    %rsp,%rbp
   4:       sub    $0x60,%rsp
   8:       mov    %rbx,-0x8(%rbp)
   c:       mov    0x68(%rdi),%r9d
  10:       sub    0x6c(%rdi),%r9d
  14:       mov    0xd8(%rdi),%r8
  1b:       mov    $0xc,%esi
  20:       callq  0xffffffffe0ff9442
  25:       cmp    $0x800,%eax
  2a:       jne    0x0000000000000042
  2c:       mov    $0x17,%esi
  31:       callq  0xffffffffe0ff945e
  36:       cmp    $0x1,%eax
  39:       jne    0x0000000000000042
  3b:       mov    $0xffff,%eax
  40:       jmp    0x0000000000000044
  42:       xor    %eax,%eax
  44:       leaveq
  45:       retq

Alternatively, the tool can also dump related opcodes along with the disassembly.

# ./bpf_jit_disasm -o
70 bytes emitted from JIT compiler (pass:3, flen:6)
ffffffffa0069c8f + <x>:
   0:       push   %rbp
    55
   1:       mov    %rsp,%rbp
    48 89 e5
   4:       sub    $0x60,%rsp
    48 83 ec 60
   8:       mov    %rbx,-0x8(%rbp)
    48 89 5d f8
   c:       mov    0x68(%rdi),%r9d
    44 8b 4f 68
  10:       sub    0x6c(%rdi),%r9d
    44 2b 4f 6c
  14:       mov    0xd8(%rdi),%r8
    4c 8b 87 d8 00 00 00
  1b:       mov    $0xc,%esi
    be 0c 00 00 00
  20:       callq  0xffffffffe0ff9442
    e8 1d 94 ff e0
  25:       cmp    $0x800,%eax
    3d 00 08 00 00
  2a:       jne    0x0000000000000042
    75 16
  2c:       mov    $0x17,%esi
    be 17 00 00 00
  31:       callq  0xffffffffe0ff945e
    e8 28 94 ff e0
  36:       cmp    $0x1,%eax
    83 f8 01
  39:       jne    0x0000000000000042
    75 07
  3b:       mov    $0xffff,%eax
    b8 ff ff 00 00
  40:       jmp    0x0000000000000044
    eb 02
  42:       xor    %eax,%eax
    31 c0
  44:       leaveq
    c9
  45:       retq
    c3

More recently, bpftool adapted the same feature of dumping the BPF JIT image based on a given BPF program ID already loaded in the system (see bpftool section).

For performance analysis of JITed BPF programs, perf can be used as usual. As a prerequisite, JITed programs need to be exported through kallsyms infrastructure.

# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable
# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_kallsyms

Enabling or disabling bpf_jit_kallsyms does not require a reload of the related BPF programs. Next, a small workflow example is provided for profiling BPF programs. A crafted tc BPF program is used for demonstration purposes, where perf records a failed allocation inside bpf_clone_redirect() helper. Due to the use of direct write, bpf_try_make_head_writable() failed, which would then release the cloned skb again and return with an error message. perf thus records all kfree_skb events.

# tc qdisc add dev em1 clsact
# tc filter add dev em1 ingress bpf da obj prog.o sec main
# tc filter show dev em1 ingress
filter protocol all pref 49152 bpf
filter protocol all pref 49152 bpf handle 0x1 prog.o:[main] direct-action id 1 tag 8227addf251b7543

# cat /proc/kallsyms
[...]
ffffffffc00349e0 t fjes_hw_init_command_registers    [fjes]
ffffffffc003e2e0 d __tracepoint_fjes_hw_stop_debug_err    [fjes]
ffffffffc0036190 t fjes_hw_epbuf_tx_pkt_send    [fjes]
ffffffffc004b000 t bpf_prog_8227addf251b7543

# perf record -a -g -e skb:kfree_skb sleep 60
# perf script --kallsyms=/proc/kallsyms
[...]
ksoftirqd/0     6 [000]  1004.578402:    skb:kfree_skb: skbaddr=0xffff9d4161f20a00 protocol=2048 location=0xffffffffc004b52c
   7fffb8745961 bpf_clone_redirect (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffc004e52c bpf_prog_8227addf251b7543 (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffc05b6283 cls_bpf_classify (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb875957a tc_classify (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb8729840 __netif_receive_skb_core (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb8729e38 __netif_receive_skb (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb872ae05 process_backlog (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb872a43e net_rx_action (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb886176c __do_softirq (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb80ac5b9 run_ksoftirqd (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb80ca7fa smpboot_thread_fn (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb80c6831 kthread (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)
   7fffb885e09c ret_from_fork (/lib/modules/4.10.0+/build/vmlinux)

The stack trace recorded by perf will then show the bpf_prog_8227addf251b7543() symbol as part of the call trace, meaning that the BPF program with the tag 8227addf251b7543 was related to the kfree_skb event, and such program was attached to netdevice em1 on the ingress hook as shown by tc.

Introspection

The Linux kernel provides various tracepoints around BPF and XDP which can be used for additional introspection, for example, to trace interactions of user space programs with the bpf system call.

Tracepoints for BPF:

# perf list | grep bpf:
bpf:bpf_map_create                                 [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_map_delete_elem                            [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_map_lookup_elem                            [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_map_next_key                               [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_map_update_elem                            [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_obj_get_map                                [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_obj_get_prog                               [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_obj_pin_map                                [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_obj_pin_prog                               [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_prog_get_type                              [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_prog_load                                  [Tracepoint event]
bpf:bpf_prog_put_rcu                               [Tracepoint event]

Example usage with perf (alternatively to sleep example used here, a specific application like tc could be used here instead, of course):

# perf record -a -e bpf:* sleep 10
# perf script
sock_example  6197 [005]   283.980322:      bpf:bpf_map_create: map type=ARRAY ufd=4 key=4 val=8 max=256 flags=0
sock_example  6197 [005]   283.980721:       bpf:bpf_prog_load: prog=a5ea8fa30ea6849c type=SOCKET_FILTER ufd=5
sock_example  6197 [005]   283.988423:   bpf:bpf_prog_get_type: prog=a5ea8fa30ea6849c type=SOCKET_FILTER
sock_example  6197 [005]   283.988443: bpf:bpf_map_lookup_elem: map type=ARRAY ufd=4 key=[06 00 00 00] val=[00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00]
[...]
sock_example  6197 [005]   288.990868: bpf:bpf_map_lookup_elem: map type=ARRAY ufd=4 key=[01 00 00 00] val=[14 00 00 00 00 00 00 00]
     swapper     0 [005]   289.338243:    bpf:bpf_prog_put_rcu: prog=a5ea8fa30ea6849c type=SOCKET_FILTER

For the BPF programs, their individual program tag is displayed.

For debugging, XDP also has a tracepoint that is triggered when exceptions are raised:

# perf list | grep xdp:
xdp:xdp_exception                                  [Tracepoint event]

Exceptions are triggered in the following scenarios:

  • The BPF program returned an invalid / unknown XDP action code.

  • The BPF program returned with XDP_ABORTED indicating a non-graceful exit.

  • The BPF program returned with XDP_TX, but there was an error on transmit, for example, due to the port not being up, due to the transmit ring being full, due to allocation failures, etc.

Both tracepoint classes can also be inspected with a BPF program itself attached to one or more tracepoints, collecting further information in a map or punting such events to a user space collector through the bpf_perf_event_output() helper, for example.

Tracing pipe

When a BPF program makes a call to bpf_trace_printk(), the output is sent to the kernel tracing pipe. Users may read from this file to consume events that are traced to this buffer:

# tail -f /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_pipe
...

Miscellaneous

BPF programs and maps are memory accounted against RLIMIT_MEMLOCK similar to perf. The currently available size in unit of system pages which may be locked into memory can be inspected through ulimit -l. The setrlimit system call man page provides further details.

The default limit is usually insufficient to load more complex programs or larger BPF maps, so that the BPF system call will return with errno of EPERM. In such situations a workaround with ulimit -l unlimited or with a sufficiently large limit could be performed. The RLIMIT_MEMLOCK is mainly enforcing limits for unprivileged users. Depending on the setup, setting a higher limit for privileged users is often acceptable.