bpf: Relax tracing prog recursive attach rules

Currently, it's not allowed to attach an fentry/fexit prog to another
one fentry/fexit. At the same time it's not uncommon to see a tracing
program with lots of logic in use, and the attachment limitation
prevents usage of fentry/fexit for performance analysis (e.g. with
"bpftool prog profile" command) in this case. An example could be
falcosecurity libs project that uses tp_btf tracing programs.

Following the corresponding discussion [1], the reason for that is to
avoid tracing progs call cycles without introducing more complex
solutions. But currently it seems impossible to load and attach tracing
programs in a way that will form such a cycle. The limitation is coming
from the fact that attach_prog_fd is specified at the prog load (thus
making it impossible to attach to a program loaded after it in this
way), as well as tracing progs not implementing link_detach.

Replace "no same type" requirement with verification that no more than
one level of attachment nesting is allowed. In this way only one
fentry/fexit program could be attached to another fentry/fexit to cover
profiling use case, and still no cycle could be formed. To implement,
add a new field into bpf_prog_aux to track nested attachment for tracing
programs.

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20191108064039.2041889-16-ast@kernel.org/

Acked-by: Jiri Olsa <olsajiri@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Song Liu <song@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Dmitrii Dolgov <9erthalion6@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240103190559.14750-2-9erthalion6@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 25 insertions, 14 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/bpf/verifier.c b/kernel/bpf/verifier.c
index d5f4ff1eb235..adbf330d364b 100644
--- a/kernel/bpf/verifier.c
+++ b/kernel/bpf/verifier.c
@@ -20317,6 +20317,7 @@ int bpf_check_attach_target(struct bpf_verifier_log *log,
 			    struct bpf_attach_target_info *tgt_info)
 {
 	bool prog_extension = prog->type == BPF_PROG_TYPE_EXT;
+	bool prog_tracing = prog->type == BPF_PROG_TYPE_TRACING;
 	const char prefix[] = "btf_trace_";
 	int ret = 0, subprog = -1, i;
 	const struct btf_type *t;
@@ -20387,10 +20388,21 @@ int bpf_check_attach_target(struct bpf_verifier_log *log,
 			bpf_log(log, "Can attach to only JITed progs\n");
 			return -EINVAL;
 		}
-		if (tgt_prog->type == prog->type) {
-			/* Cannot fentry/fexit another fentry/fexit program.
-			 * Cannot attach program extension to another extension.
-			 * It's ok to attach fentry/fexit to extension program.
+		if (prog_tracing) {
+			if (aux->attach_tracing_prog) {
+				/*
+				 * Target program is an fentry/fexit which is already attached
+				 * to another tracing program. More levels of nesting
+				 * attachment are not allowed.
+				 */
+				bpf_log(log, "Cannot nest tracing program attach more than once\n");
+				return -EINVAL;
+			}
+		} else if (tgt_prog->type == prog->type) {
+			/*
+			 * To avoid potential call chain cycles, prevent attaching of a
+			 * program extension to another extension. It's ok to attach
+			 * fentry/fexit to extension program.
 			 */
 			bpf_log(log, "Cannot recursively attach\n");
 			return -EINVAL;
@@ -20403,16 +20415,15 @@ int bpf_check_attach_target(struct bpf_verifier_log *log,
 			 * except fentry/fexit. The reason is the following.
 			 * The fentry/fexit programs are used for performance
 			 * analysis, stats and can be attached to any program
-			 * type except themselves. When extension program is
-			 * replacing XDP function it is necessary to allow
-			 * performance analysis of all functions. Both original
-			 * XDP program and its program extension. Hence
-			 * attaching fentry/fexit to BPF_PROG_TYPE_EXT is
-			 * allowed. If extending of fentry/fexit was allowed it
-			 * would be possible to create long call chain
-			 * fentry->extension->fentry->extension beyond
-			 * reasonable stack size. Hence extending fentry is not
-			 * allowed.
+			 * type. When extension program is replacing XDP function
+			 * it is necessary to allow performance analysis of all
+			 * functions. Both original XDP program and its program
+			 * extension. Hence attaching fentry/fexit to
+			 * BPF_PROG_TYPE_EXT is allowed. If extending of
+			 * fentry/fexit was allowed it would be possible to create
+			 * long call chain fentry->extension->fentry->extension
+			 * beyond reasonable stack size. Hence extending fentry
+			 * is not allowed.
 			 */
 			bpf_log(log, "Cannot extend fentry/fexit\n");
 			return -EINVAL;