Re: [PATCH v2 bpf-next 0/9] add new acquire/release BPF kfuncs

[Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 05:06:36PM +0000, Matt Bobrowski wrote:
> Hey Christian,
> 
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 01:00:56PM +0100, Christian Brauner wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 08, 2024 at 05:23:30PM -0800, Alexei Starovoitov wrote:
> > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 2:36 AM Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > These exports are specifically for an out-of-tree BPF LSM program that
> > > > is not accessible to the public. The question in the other mail stands.
> > > 
> > > The question was already answered. You just don't like the answer.
> > > bpf progs are not equivalent to kernel modules.
> > > They have completely different safety and visibility properties.
> > > The safety part I already talked about.
> > > Sounds like the visibility has to be explained.
> > > Kernel modules are opaque binary blobs.
> > > bpf programs are fully transparent. The intent is known
> > > to the verifier and to anyone with understanding
> > > of bpf assembly.
> > > Those that cannot read bpf asm can read C source code that is
> > > embedded in the bpf program in kernel memory.
> > > It's not the same as "llvm-dwarfdump module.ko" on disk.
> > > The bpf prog source code is loaded into the kernel
> > > at program verification time for debugging and visibility reasons.
> > > If there is a verifier bug and bpf manages to crash the kernel
> > > vmcore will have relevant lines of program C source code right there.
> > > 
> > > Hence out-of-tree or in-tree bpf makes no practical difference.
> > > The program cannot hide its meaning and doesn't hamper debugging.
> > > 
> > > Hence adding EXPORT_SYMBOL == Brace for impact!
> > > Expect crashes, api misuse and what not.
> > > 
> > > While adding bpf_kfunc is a nop for kernel development.
> > > If kfunc is in the way of code refactoring it can be removed
> > > (as we demonstrated several times).
> > > A kfunc won't cause headaches for the kernel code it is
> > > calling (assuming no verifier bugs).
> > > If there is a bug it's on us to fix it as we demonstrated in the past.
> > > For example: bpf_probe_read_kernel().
> > > It's a wrapper of copy_from_kernel_nofault() and over the years
> > > bpf users hit various bugs in copy_from_kernel_nofault(),
> > > reported them, and _bpf developers_ fixed them.
> > > Though copy_from_kernel_nofault() is as generic as it can get
> > > and the same bugs could have been reproduced without bpf
> > > we took care of fixing these parts of the kernel.
> > > 
> > > Look at path_put().
> > > It's EXPORT_SYMBOL and any kernel module can easily screw up
> > > reference counting, so that sooner or later distro folks
> > > will experience debug pains due to out-of-tree drivers.
> > > 
> > > kfunc that calls path_put() won't have such consequences.
> > > The verifier will prevent path_put() on a pointer that wasn't
> > > acquired by the same bpf program. No support pains.
> > > It's a nop for vfs folks.
> > > 
> > > > > First of all, there is no such thing as get_task_fs_pwd/root
> > > > > in the kernel.
> > > >
> > > > Yeah, we'd need specific helpers for a never seen before out-of-tree BPF
> > > > LSM. I don't see how that's different from an out-of-tree kernel module.
> > > 
> > > Sorry, but you don't seem to understand what bpf can and cannot do,
> > > hence they look similar.
> > 
> > Maybe. On the other hand you seem to ignore what I'm saying. You
> > currently don't have a clear set of rules for when it's ok for someone
> > to send patches and request access to bpf kfuncs to implement a new BPF
> > program. This patchset very much illustrates this point. The safety
> > properties of bpf don't matter for this. And again, your safety
> > properties very much didn't protect you from your bpf_d_path() mess.
> > 
> > We're not even clearly told where and how these helper are supposed to be
> > used. That's not ok and will never be ok. As long as there are no clear
> > criteria to operate under this is highly problematic. This may be fine
> > from a bpf perspective and one can even understand why because that's
> > apparently your model or promise to your users. But there's no reason to
> > expect the same level of laxness from any of the subsystems you're
> > requesting kfuncs from.
> 
> You raise a completely fair point, and I truly do apologies for the
> lack of context and in depth explanations around the specific
> situations that the proposed BPF kfuncs are intended to be used
> from. Admittedly, that's a failure on my part, and I can completely
> understand why from a maintainers point of view there would be
> reservations around acknowledging requests for adding such invisible
> dependencies.

Thanks for providing more background.

> Now, I'm in a little bit of a tough situation as I'm unable to point
> you to an open-source BPF LSM implementation that intends to make use
> of such newly proposed BPF kfuncs. That's just an unfortunate
> constraint and circumstance that I'm having to deal with, so I'm just
> going to have to provide heavily redacted and incomplete example to
> illustrate how these BPF kfuncs intend to be used from BPF LSM
> programs that I personally work on here at Google. Notably though, the
> contexts that I do share here may obviously be a nonholistic view on
> how these newly introduced BPF kfuncs end up getting used in practice
> by some other completely arbitrary open-source BPF LSM programs.

I have to say that this to me is wild. Essentially we're supposed to
allow access to our internal APIs based on internal use-cases that
aren't public and likely never will be.

If that's acceptable then I want bpf to document this in their kernel
Documentation and submit this for review to the wider community.