[PATCH ipsec-next v3 3/9] libbpf: Add BPF_CORE_WRITE_BITFIELD() macro

Daniel Xu
2023-12-01T20:24:08Z

=== Motivation ===

Similar to reading from CO-RE bitfields, we need a CO-RE aware bitfield
writing wrapper to make the verifier happy.

Two alternatives to this approach are:

1. Use the upcoming `preserve_static_offset` [0] attribute to disable
CO-RE on specific structs.
2. Use broader byte-sized writes to write to bitfields.

(1) is a bit hard to use. It requires specific and not-very-obvious
annotations to bpftool generated vmlinux.h. It's also not generally
available in released LLVM versions yet.

(2) makes the code quite hard to read and write. And especially if
BPF_CORE_READ_BITFIELD() is already being used, it makes more sense to
to have an inverse helper for writing.

=== Implementation details ===

Since the logic is a bit non-obvious, I thought it would be helpful
to explain exactly what's going on.

To start, it helps by explaining what LSHIFT_U64 (lshift) and RSHIFT_U64
(rshift) is designed to mean. Consider the core of the
BPF_CORE_READ_BITFIELD() algorithm:

val <<= __CORE_RELO(s, field, LSHIFT_U64);
val = val >> __CORE_RELO(s, field, RSHIFT_U64);

Basically what happens is we lshift to clear the non-relevant (blank)
higher order bits. Then we rshift to bring the relevant bits (bitfield)
down to LSB position (while also clearing blank lower order bits). To
illustrate:

Start: ........XXX......
Lshift: XXX......00000000
Rshift: 00000000000000XXX

where `.` means blank bit, `0` means 0 bit, and `X` means bitfield bit.

After the two operations, the bitfield is ready to be interpreted as a
regular integer.

Next, we want to build an alternative (but more helpful) mental model
on lshift and rshift. That is, to consider:

* rshift as the total number of blank bits in the u64
* lshift as number of blank bits left of the bitfield in the u64

Take a moment to consider why that is true by consulting the above
diagram.

With this insight, we can how define the following relationship:

bitfield
_
| |
0.....00XXX0...00
| | | |
|______| | |
lshift | |
|____|
(rshift - lshift)

That is, we know the number of higher order blank bits is just lshift.
And the number of lower order blank bits is (rshift - lshift).

Finally, we can examine the core of the write side algorithm:

mask = (~0ULL << rshift) >> lshift; // 1
nval = new_val; // 2
nval = (nval << rpad) & mask; // 3
val = (val & ~mask) | nval; // 4

(1): Compute a mask where the set bits are the bitfield bits. The first
left shift zeros out exactly the number of blank bits, leaving a
bitfield sized set of 1s. The subsequent right shift inserts the
correct amount of higher order blank bits.
(2): Place the new value into a word sized container, nval.
(3): Place nval at the correct bit position and mask out blank bits.
(4): Mix the bitfield in with original surrounding blank bits.

[0]: https://reviews.llvm.org/D133361
Co-authored-by: Eduard Zingerman <eddyz87@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Eduard Zingerman <eddyz87@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@aviatrix.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@aviatrix.com>
Signed-off-by: Daniel Xu <dxu@dxuuu.xyz>
---
tools/lib/bpf/bpf_core_read.h | 34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 34 insertions(+)

diff --git a/tools/lib/bpf/bpf_core_read.h b/tools/lib/bpf/bpf_core_read.h
index 1ac57bb7ac55..a7ffb80e3539 100644
--- a/tools/lib/bpf/bpf_core_read.h
+++ b/tools/lib/bpf/bpf_core_read.h
@@ -111,6 +111,40 @@ enum bpf_enum_value_kind {
val; \
})

+/*
+ * Write to a bitfield, identified by s->field.
+ * This is the inverse of BPF_CORE_WRITE_BITFIELD().
+ */
+#define BPF_CORE_WRITE_BITFIELD(s, field, new_val) ({ \
+ void *p = (void *)s + __CORE_RELO(s, field, BYTE_OFFSET); \
+ unsigned int byte_size = __CORE_RELO(s, field, BYTE_SIZE); \
+ unsigned int lshift = __CORE_RELO(s, field, LSHIFT_U64); \
+ unsigned int rshift = __CORE_RELO(s, field, RSHIFT_U64); \
+ unsigned int rpad = rshift - lshift; \
+ unsigned long long nval, mask, val; \
+ \
+ asm volatile("" : "+r"(p)); \
+ \
+ switch (byte_size) { \
+ case 1: val = *(unsigned char *)p; break; \
+ case 2: val = *(unsigned short *)p; break; \
+ case 4: val = *(unsigned int *)p; break; \
+ case 8: val = *(unsigned long long *)p; break; \
+ } \
+ \
+ mask = (~0ULL << rshift) >> lshift; \
+ nval = new_val; \
+ nval = (nval << rpad) & mask; \
+ val = (val & ~mask) | nval; \
+ \
+ switch (byte_size) { \
+ case 1: *(unsigned char *)p = val; break; \
+ case 2: *(unsigned short *)p = val; break; \
+ case 4: *(unsigned int *)p = val; break; \
+ case 8: *(unsigned long long *)p = val; break; \
+ } \
+})
+
#define ___bpf_field_ref1(field) (field)
#define ___bpf_field_ref2(type, field) (((typeof(type) *)0)->field)
#define ___bpf_field_ref(args...) \
--
2.42.1