bpf, docs: Libbpf overview documentation

This patch documents overview of libbpf, including its features for
developing BPF programs.

Signed-off-by: Sreevani Sreejith <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrii Nakryiko <[email protected]>
Acked-by: David Vernet <[email protected]>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/[email protected]

Author: sreevani-ship-it

Documentation/bpf/libbpf/index.rst

@@ -2,23 +2,32 @@
 
 .. _libbpf:
 
+======
 libbpf
 ======
 
+If you are looking to develop BPF applications using the libbpf library, this
+directory contains important documentation that you should read.
+
+To get started, it is recommended to begin with the :doc:`libbpf Overview
+<libbpf_overview>` document, which provides a high-level understanding of the
+libbpf APIs and their usage. This will give you a solid foundation to start
+exploring and utilizing the various features of libbpf to develop your BPF
+applications.
+
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1
 
+   libbpf_overview
    API Documentation <https://libbpf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api.html>
    program_types
    libbpf_naming_convention
    libbpf_build
 
-This is documentation for libbpf, a userspace library for loading and
-interacting with bpf programs.
 
-All general BPF questions, including kernel functionality, libbpf APIs and
-their application, should be sent to [email protected] mailing list.
-You can `subscribe <http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#bpf>`_ to the
-mailing list search its `archive <https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/>`_.
-Please search the archive before asking new questions. It very well might
-be that this was already addressed or answered before.
+All general BPF questions, including kernel functionality, libbpf APIs and their
+application, should be sent to [email protected] mailing list.  You can
+`subscribe <http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#bpf>`_ to the mailing list
+search its `archive <https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/>`_.  Please search the archive
+before asking new questions. It may be that this was already addressed or
+answered before.

Documentation/bpf/libbpf/libbpf_overview.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,228 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+===============
+libbpf Overview
+===============
+
+libbpf is a C-based library containing a BPF loader that takes compiled BPF
+object files and prepares and loads them into the Linux kernel. libbpf takes the
+heavy lifting of loading, verifying, and attaching BPF programs to various
+kernel hooks, allowing BPF application developers to focus only on BPF program
+correctness and performance.
+
+The following are the high-level features supported by libbpf:
+
+* Provides high-level and low-level APIs for user space programs to interact
+  with BPF programs. The low-level APIs wrap all the bpf system call
+  functionality, which is useful when users need more fine-grained control
+  over the interactions between user space and BPF programs.
+* Provides overall support for the BPF object skeleton generated by bpftool.
+  The skeleton file simplifies the process for the user space programs to access
+  global variables and work with BPF programs.
+* Provides BPF-side APIS, including BPF helper definitions, BPF maps support,
+  and tracing helpers, allowing developers to simplify BPF code writing.
+* Supports BPF CO-RE mechanism, enabling BPF developers to write portable
+  BPF programs that can be compiled once and run across different kernel
+  versions.
+
+This document will delve into the above concepts in detail, providing a deeper
+understanding of the capabilities and advantages of libbpf and how it can help
+you develop BPF applications efficiently.
+
+BPF App Lifecycle and libbpf APIs
+==================================
+
+A BPF application consists of one or more BPF programs (either cooperating or
+completely independent), BPF maps, and global variables. The global
+variables are shared between all BPF programs, which allows them to cooperate on
+a common set of data. libbpf provides APIs that user space programs can use to
+manipulate the BPF programs by triggering different phases of a BPF application
+lifecycle.
+
+The following section provides a brief overview of each phase in the BPF life
+cycle:
+
+* **Open phase**: In this phase, libbpf parses the BPF
+  object file and discovers BPF maps, BPF programs, and global variables. After
+  a BPF app is opened, user space apps can make additional adjustments
+  (setting BPF program types, if necessary; pre-setting initial values for
+  global variables, etc.) before all the entities are created and loaded.
+
+* **Load phase**: In the load phase, libbpf creates BPF
+  maps, resolves various relocations, and verifies and loads BPF programs into
+  the kernel. At this point, libbpf validates all the parts of a BPF application
+  and loads the BPF program into the kernel, but no BPF program has yet been
+  executed. After the load phase, it’s possible to set up the initial BPF map
+  state without racing with the BPF program code execution.
+
+* **Attachment phase**: In this phase, libbpf
+  attaches BPF programs to various BPF hook points (e.g., tracepoints, kprobes,
+  cgroup hooks, network packet processing pipeline, etc.). During this
+  phase, BPF programs perform useful work such as processing
+  packets, or updating BPF maps and global variables that can be read from user
+  space.
+
+* **Tear down phase**: In the tear down phase,
+  libbpf detaches BPF programs and unloads them from the kernel. BPF maps are
+  destroyed, and all the resources used by the BPF app are freed.
+
+BPF Object Skeleton File
+========================
+
+BPF skeleton is an alternative interface to libbpf APIs for working with BPF
+objects. Skeleton code abstract away generic libbpf APIs to significantly
+simplify code for manipulating BPF programs from user space. Skeleton code
+includes a bytecode representation of the BPF object file, simplifying the
+process of distributing your BPF code. With BPF bytecode embedded, there are no
+extra files to deploy along with your application binary.
+
+You can generate the skeleton header file ``(.skel.h)`` for a specific object
+file by passing the BPF object to the bpftool. The generated BPF skeleton
+provides the following custom functions that correspond to the BPF lifecycle,
+each of them prefixed with the specific object name:
+
+* ``<name>__open()`` – creates and opens BPF application (``<name>`` stands for
+  the specific bpf object name)
+* ``<name>__load()`` – instantiates, loads,and verifies BPF application parts
+* ``<name>__attach()`` – attaches all auto-attachable BPF programs (it’s
+  optional, you can have more control by using libbpf APIs directly)
+* ``<name>__destroy()`` – detaches all BPF programs and
+  frees up all used resources
+
+Using the skeleton code is the recommended way to work with bpf programs. Keep
+in mind, BPF skeleton provides access to the underlying BPF object, so whatever
+was possible to do with generic libbpf APIs is still possible even when the BPF
+skeleton is used. It's an additive convenience feature, with no syscalls, and no
+cumbersome code.
+
+Other Advantages of Using Skeleton File
+---------------------------------------
+
+* BPF skeleton provides an interface for user space programs to work with BPF
+  global variables. The skeleton code memory maps global variables as a struct
+  into user space. The struct interface allows user space programs to initialize
+  BPF programs before the BPF load phase and fetch and update data from user
+  space afterward.
+
+* The ``skel.h`` file reflects the object file structure by listing out the
+  available maps, programs, etc. BPF skeleton provides direct access to all the
+  BPF maps and BPF programs as struct fields. This eliminates the need for
+  string-based lookups with ``bpf_object_find_map_by_name()`` and
+  ``bpf_object_find_program_by_name()`` APIs, reducing errors due to BPF source
+  code and user-space code getting out of sync.
+
+* The embedded bytecode representation of the object file ensures that the
+  skeleton and the BPF object file are always in sync.
+
+BPF Helpers
+===========
+
+libbpf provides BPF-side APIs that BPF programs can use to interact with the
+system. The BPF helpers definition allows developers to use them in BPF code as
+any other plain C function. For example, there are helper functions to print
+debugging messages, get the time since the system was booted, interact with BPF
+maps, manipulate network packets, etc.
+
+For a complete description of what the helpers do, the arguments they take, and
+the return value, see the `bpf-helpers
+<https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/bpf-helpers.7.html>`_ man page.
+
+BPF CO-RE (Compile Once – Run Everywhere)
+=========================================
+
+BPF programs work in the kernel space and have access to kernel memory and data
+structures. One limitation that BPF applications come across is the lack of
+portability across different kernel versions and configurations. `BCC
+<https://github.com/iovisor/bcc/>`_ is one of the solutions for BPF
+portability. However, it comes with runtime overhead and a large binary size
+from embedding the compiler with the application.
+
+libbpf steps up the BPF program portability by supporting the BPF CO-RE concept.
+BPF CO-RE brings together BTF type information, libbpf, and the compiler to
+produce a single executable binary that you can run on multiple kernel versions
+and configurations.
+
+To make BPF programs portable libbpf relies on the BTF type information of the
+running kernel. Kernel also exposes this self-describing authoritative BTF
+information through ``sysfs`` at ``/sys/kernel/btf/vmlinux``.
+
+You can generate the BTF information for the running kernel with the following
+command:
+
+::
+
+  $ bpftool btf dump file /sys/kernel/btf/vmlinux format c > vmlinux.h
+
+The command generates a ``vmlinux.h`` header file with all kernel types
+(:doc:`BTF types <../btf>`) that the running kernel uses. Including
+``vmlinux.h`` in your BPF program eliminates dependency on system-wide kernel
+headers.
+
+libbpf enables portability of BPF programs by looking at the BPF program’s
+recorded BTF type and relocation information and matching them to BTF
+information (vmlinux) provided by the running kernel. libbpf then resolves and
+matches all the types and fields, and updates necessary offsets and other
+relocatable data to ensure that BPF program’s logic functions correctly for a
+specific kernel on the host. BPF CO-RE concept thus eliminates overhead
+associated with BPF development and allows developers to write portable BPF
+applications without modifications and runtime source code compilation on the
+target machine.
+
+The following code snippet shows how to read the parent field of a kernel
+``task_struct`` using BPF CO-RE and libbf. The basic helper to read a field in a
+CO-RE relocatable manner is ``bpf_core_read(dst, sz, src)``, which will read
+``sz`` bytes from the field referenced by ``src`` into the memory pointed to by
+``dst``.
+
+.. code-block:: C
+   :emphasize-lines: 6
+
+    //...
+    struct task_struct *task = (void *)bpf_get_current_task();
+    struct task_struct *parent_task;
+    int err;
+
+    err = bpf_core_read(&parent_task, sizeof(void *), &task->parent);
+    if (err) {
+      /* handle error */
+    }
+
+    /* parent_task contains the value of task->parent pointer */
+
+In the code snippet, we first get a pointer to the current ``task_struct`` using
+``bpf_get_current_task()``.  We then use ``bpf_core_read()`` to read the parent
+field of task struct into the ``parent_task`` variable. ``bpf_core_read()`` is
+just like ``bpf_probe_read_kernel()`` BPF helper, except it records information
+about the field that should be relocated on the target kernel. i.e, if the
+``parent`` field gets shifted to a different offset within
+``struct task_struct`` due to some new field added in front of it, libbpf will
+automatically adjust the actual offset to the proper value.
+
+Getting Started with libbpf
+===========================
+
+Check out the `libbpf-bootstrap <https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf-bootstrap>`_
+repository with simple examples of using libbpf to build various BPF
+applications.
+
+See also `libbpf API documentation
+<https://libbpf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api.html>`_.
+
+libbpf and Rust
+===============
+
+If you are building BPF applications in Rust, it is recommended to use the
+`Libbpf-rs <https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf-rs>`_ library instead of bindgen
+bindings directly to libbpf. Libbpf-rs wraps libbpf functionality in
+Rust-idiomatic interfaces and provides libbpf-cargo plugin to handle BPF code
+compilation and skeleton generation. Using Libbpf-rs will make building user
+space part of the BPF application easier. Note that the BPF program themselves
+must still be written in plain C.
+
+Additional Documentation
+========================
+
+* `Program types and ELF Sections <https://libbpf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/program_types.html>`_
+* `API naming convention <https://libbpf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/libbpf_naming_convention.html>`_
+* `Building libbpf <https://libbpf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/libbpf_build.html>`_
+* `API documentation Convention <https://libbpf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/libbpf_naming_convention.html#api-documentation-convention>`_