Linux Socket Filtering aka Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF)
=======================================================
Introduction
------------
Linux Socket Filtering (LSF) is derived from the Berkeley Packet Filter.
Though there are some distinct differences between the BSD and Linux
Kernel filtering, but when we speak of BPF or LSF in Linux context, we
mean the very same mechanism of filtering in the Linux kernel.
BPF allows a user-space program to attach a filter onto any socket and
allow or disallow certain types of data to come through the socket. LSF
follows exactly the same filter code structure as BSD's BPF, so referring
to the BSD bpf.4 manpage is very helpful in creating filters.
On Linux, BPF is much simpler than on BSD. One does not have to worry
about devices or anything like that. You simply create your filter code,
send it to the kernel via the SO_ATTACH_FILTER option and if your filter
code passes the kernel check on it, you then immediately begin filtering
data on that socket.
You can also detach filters from your socket via the SO_DETACH_FILTER
option. This will probably not be used much since when you close a socket
that has a filter on it the filter is automagically removed. The other
less common case may be adding a different filter on the same socket where
you had another filter that is still running: the kernel takes care of
removing the old one and placing your new one in its place, assuming your
filter has passed the checks, otherwise if it fails the old filter will
remain on that socket.
SO_LOCK_FILTER option allows to lock the filter attached to a socket. Once
set, a filter cannot be removed or changed. This allows one process to
setup a socket, attach a filter, lock it then drop privileges and be
assured that the filter will be kept until the socket is closed.
The biggest user of this construct might be libpcap. Issuing a high-level
filter command like `tcpdump -i em1 port 22` passes through the libpcap
internal compiler that generates a structure that can eventually be loaded
via SO_ATTACH_FILTER to the kernel. `tcpdump -i em1 port 22 -ddd`
displays what is being placed into this structure.
Although we were only speaking about sockets here, BPF in Linux is used
in many more places. There's xt_bpf for netfilter, cls_bpf in the kernel
qdisc layer, SECCOMP-BPF (SECure COMPuting [1]), and lots of other places
such as team driver, PTP code, etc where BPF is being used.
[1] Documentation/userspace-api/seccomp_filter.rst
Original BPF paper:
Steven McCanne and Van Jacobson. 1993. The BSD packet filter: a new
architecture for user-level packet capture. In Proceedings of the
USENIX Winter 1993 Conference Proceedings on USENIX Winter 1993
Conference Proceedings (USENIX'93). USENIX Association, Berkeley,
CA, USA, 2-2. [http://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.pdf]
Structure
---------
User space applications include <linux/filter.h> which contains the
following relevant structures:
struct sock_filter { /* Filter block */
__u16 code; /* Actual filter code */
__u8 jt; /* Jump true */
__u8 jf; /* Jump false */
__u32 k; /* Generic multiuse field */
};
Such a structure is assembled as an array of 4-tuples, that contains
a code, jt, jf and k value. jt and jf are jump offsets and k a generic
value to be used for a provided code.
struct sock_fprog { /* Required for SO_ATTACH_FILTER. */
unsigned short len; /* Number of filter blocks */
struct sock_filter __user *filter;
};
For socket filtering, a pointer to this structure (as shown in
follow-up example) is being passed to the kernel through setsockopt(2).
Example
-------
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <linux/if_ether.h>
/* ... */
/* From the example above: tcpdump -i em1 port 22 -dd */
struct sock_filter code[] = {
{ 0x28, 0, 0, 0x0000000c },
{ 0x15, 0, 8, 0x000086dd },
{ 0x30, 0, 0, 0x00000014 },
{ 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000084 },
{ 0x15, 1, 0, 0x00000006 },
{ 0x15, 0, 17, 0x00000011 },
{ 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000036 },
{ 0x15, 14, 0, 0x00000016 },
{ 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000038 },
{ 0x15, 12, 13, 0x00000016 },
{ 0x15, 0, 12, 0x00000800 },
{ 0x30, 0, 0, 0x00000017 },
{ 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000084 },
{ 0x15, 1, 0, 0x00000006 },
{ 0x15, 0, 8, 0x00000011 },
{ 0x28, 0, 0, 0x00000014 },
{ 0x45, 6, 0, 0x00001fff },
{ 0xb1, 0, 0, 0x0000000e },
{ 0x48, 0, 0, 0x0000000e },
{ 0x15, 2, 0, 0x00000016 },
{ 0x48, 0, 0, 0x00000010 },
{ 0x15, 0, 1, 0x00000016 },
{ 0x06, 0, 0, 0x0000ffff },
{ 0x06, 0, 0, 0x00000000 },
};
struct sock_fprog bpf = {
.len = ARRAY_SIZE(code),
.filter = code,
};
sock = socket(PF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL));
if (sock < 0)
/* ... bail out ... */
ret = setsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, &bpf, sizeof(bpf));
if (ret < 0)
/* ... bail out ... */
/* ... */
close(sock);
The above example code attaches a socket filter for a PF_PACKET socket
in order to let all IPv4/IPv6 packets with port 22 pass. The rest will
be dropped for this socket.
The setsockopt(2) call to SO_DETACH_FILTER doesn't need any arguments
and SO_LOCK_FILTER for preventing the filter to be detached, takes an
integer value with 0 or 1.
Note that socket filters are not restricted to PF_PACKET sockets only,
but can also be used on other socket families.
Summary of system calls:
* setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, &val, sizeof(val));
* setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_DETACH_FILTER, &val, sizeof(val));
* setsockopt(sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_LOCK_FILTER, &val, s