BPF_MISC+BPF_COP and BPF_COPX

[Rui Paulo]

On 4 Aug 2013, at 12:12, Mindaugas Rasiukevicius <rmind at netbsd.org> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I would like propose new BPF instructions for the misc category: BPF_COP
> and BPF_COPX.  It would provide a capability of calling an external
> function - think of BPF "coprocessor".  The argument for BPF_COP is an
> index to a pre-loaded array of function pointers.  BPF_COPX takes the
> function index from the register X rather than a constant.
> 
> 	BPF_STMT(BPF_MISC+BPF_COP, 0), /* A <- funcs[0](...) */
> 
> 	typedef uint32_t(*bpf_copfunc_t)(struct mbuf *pkt,
> 	    uint32_t A, uint32_t *M);
> 
> 	int bpf_set_cop(bpf_ctx_t *c, bpf_copfunc_t funcs[], size_t n);
> 
> The arguments passed to a called function would be the packet, accumulator
> and the memory store.  The return value would be stored in the accumulator
> and the register X would be reset to 0.  Note that the function may also
> change the memory store.  If the function index is out of range, then the
> register X would be set to 0xffffffff.
> 
> Note that bpf_filter(9) would need to take some context structure (which is
> preferable in general).
> 
> Comments?


Why do you need this in the first place? 
Are you sure this is a safe design? Adding this functionality to BPF makes me a little nervous as an error in the implementation leads to kernel code execution (I could be able to call random kernel functions).

--
Rui Paulo