48. Berkeley Packet Filter Library

The DPDK provides an BPF library that gives the ability to load and execute Enhanced Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) bytecode within user-space dpdk application.

It supports basic set of features from eBPF spec. Please refer to the eBPF spec <https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/filter.txt> for more information. Also it introduces basic framework to load/unload BPF-based filters on eth devices (right now only via SW RX/TX callbacks).

The library API provides the following basic operations:

  • Create a new BPF execution context and load user provided eBPF code into it.
  • Destroy an BPF execution context and its runtime structures and free the associated memory.
  • Execute eBPF bytecode associated with provided input parameter.
  • Provide information about natively compiled code for given BPF context.
  • Load BPF program from the ELF file and install callback to execute it on given ethdev port/queue.

48.1. Not currently supported eBPF features

  • JIT support only available for X86_64 and arm64 platforms
  • cBPF
  • tail-pointer call
  • eBPF MAP
  • skb
  • external function calls for 32-bit platforms