Re: bpf_st_ops and cgroups. Was: [PATCH v2 02/23] bpf: initial support for attaching struct ops to cgroups

Yafang Shao
2025-10-31T11:35:42Z

On Fri, Oct 31, 2025 at 2:14 PM Song Liu <song@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2025 at 4:24 PM Roman Gushchin <roman.gushchin@linux.dev> wrote:
> >
> > Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > On Thu, Oct 30, 2025 at 12:06 PM Roman Gushchin
> > > <roman.gushchin@linux.dev> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Ok, let me summarize the options we discussed here:
> > >>
> > >> 1) Make the attachment details (e.g. cgroup_id) the part of struct ops
> > >> itself. The attachment is happening at the reg() time.
> > >>
> > >> +: It's convenient for complex stateful struct ops'es, because a
> > >> single entity represents a combination of code and data.
> > >> -: No way to attach a single struct ops to multiple entities.
> > >>
> > >> This approach is used by Tejun for per-cgroup sched_ext prototype.
> > >
> > > It's wrong. It should adopt bpf_struct_ops_link_create() approach
> > > and use attr->link_create.cgroup.relative_fd to attach.
> >
> > This is basically what I have in v2, but Andrii and Song suggested that
> > I should use attr->link_create.target_fd instead.
> >
> > I have a slight preference towards attr->link_create.cgroup.relative_fd
> > because it makes it clear that fd is a cgroup fd and potentially opens
> > a possibility to e.g. attach struct_ops to individual tasks and
> > cgroups, but I'm fine with both options.
>
> relative_fd and relative_id have specific meaning. When multiple
> programs are attached to the same object (cgroup, socket, etc.),
> relative_fd and relative_id (together with BPF_F_BEFORE and
> BPF_F_AFTER) are used to specify the order of execution.
>
> >
> > Also, as Song pointed out, fd==0 is in theory a valid target, so instead of
> > using the "if (fd) {...}" check we might need a new flag. Idk if it
> > really makes sense to complicate the code for it.
> >
> > Can we, please, decide on what's best here?
>
> How about we add a new attach_type BPF_STRUCT_OPS_CGROUP?

I'm concerned that defining a unique BPF_STRUCT_OPS_XXX for each type
might lead to a maintainability challenge. To keep the design clean
and forward-looking, we might want to consider a more generic
abstraction that could easily accommodate other kernel structures
(task_struct, mm_struct, etc.) without duplication.

--
Regards
Yafang