From: Aaron Tomlin <atomlin@atomlin.com>
To: ast@kernel.org, daniel@iogearbox.net, andrii@kernel.org,
eddyz87@gmail.com, memxor@gmail.com
Cc: martin.lau@linux.dev, song@kernel.org, yonghong.song@linux.dev,
jolsa@kernel.org, atomlin@atomlin.com, bpf@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH bpf-next v3] libbpf: Report error when a negative kprobe offset is specified
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2026 23:09:44 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260419030944.1423642-1-atomlin@atomlin.com> (raw)
In attach_kprobe(), the parsing logic uses sscanf() to extract the
target function name and offset from the section definition. Currently,
if a user specifies a negative offset (e.g., SEC("kprobe/func+-100")),
the input is not explicitly caught and reported as an error.
This commit updates the logic to explicitly notify the user when a
negative integer is provided. To facilitate this check, the offset
variable is changed from unsigned long to long so that sscanf()
can accurately capture a negative input for evaluation.
If a negative offset is detected, the loader will now print an
informative warning stating that the offset must be non-negative,
and return -EINVAL.
Additionally, free(func) is called in this new error path to prevent
a memory leak, as the function name string is dynamically allocated
by sscanf().
Fixes: e3f9bc35ea7e9 ("libbpf: Allow decimal offset for kprobes")
Acked-by: Mykyta Yatsenko <yatsenko@meta.com>
Signed-off-by: Aaron Tomlin <atomlin@atomlin.com>
---
Changes in v2 [1]:
- Corrected subject prefix to target "bpf-next" (Mykyta Yatsenko)
- Added "Fixes:" tag (Mykyta Yatsenko)
- Added "Acked-by:" tag from Mykyta Yatsenko
Changes in v1 [2]:
- Added omitted mailing list entries
[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260417195816.1265179-1-atomlin@atomlin.com/
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/0a8afc43-dfd8-4aa0-ae94-a82f8c307599@gmail.com/T/#t
tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.c | 9 ++++++++-
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.c b/tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.c
index 8b0c3246097f..af81e0e200b9 100644
--- a/tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.c
+++ b/tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.c
@@ -12279,7 +12279,7 @@ bpf_program__attach_kprobe_multi_opts(const struct bpf_program *prog,
static int attach_kprobe(const struct bpf_program *prog, long cookie, struct bpf_link **link)
{
DECLARE_LIBBPF_OPTS(bpf_kprobe_opts, opts);
- unsigned long offset = 0;
+ long offset = 0;
const char *func_name;
char *func;
int n;
@@ -12301,6 +12301,13 @@ static int attach_kprobe(const struct bpf_program *prog, long cookie, struct bpf
pr_warn("kprobe name is invalid: %s\n", func_name);
return -EINVAL;
}
+
+ if (offset < 0) {
+ free(func);
+ pr_warn("kprobe offset must be a non-negative integer: %li\n", offset);
+ return -EINVAL;
+ }
+
if (opts.retprobe && offset != 0) {
free(func);
pr_warn("kretprobes do not support offset specification\n");
--
2.51.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-04-19 3:09 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-04-19 3:09 Aaron Tomlin [this message]
2026-04-19 12:10 ` [PATCH bpf-next v3] libbpf: Report error when a negative kprobe offset is specified patchwork-bot+netdevbpf
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