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bpf: Relax precision marking in open coded iters and may_goto loop. #7077

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Pull request for series with
subject: bpf: Relax precision marking in open coded iters and may_goto loop.
version: 1
url: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=854891

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Upstream branch: 6c8d759
series: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=854891
version: 1

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Upstream branch: a87f34e
series: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=854891
version: 1

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Upstream branch: a87f34e
series: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=855220
version: 2

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Upstream branch: ecec188
series: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=855220
version: 2

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At least one diff in series https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=855220 expired. Closing PR.

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Upstream branch: 2c1713a
series: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=855823
version: 3

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Upstream branch: f980f13
series: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=855823
version: 3

Alexei Starovoitov added 2 commits May 26, 2024 10:00
v1->v2->v3:
- Algorithm changed completely.

Motivation for the patch
------------------------
Open coded iterators and may_goto is a great mechanism to implement loops,
but counted loops are problematic. For example:
  for (i = 0; i < 100 && can_loop; i++)
is verified as a bounded loop, since i < 100 condition forces the verifier to
mark 'i' as precise and loop states at different iterations are not equivalent.
That removes the benefit of open coded iterators and may_goto.
The workaround is to do:
  int zero = 0; /* global or volatile variable */
  for (i = zero; i < 100 && can_loop; i++)
to hide from the verifier the value of 'i'.
It's unnatural and so far users didn't learn such odd programming pattern.

This patch aims to improve the verifier to support
  for (i = 0; i < 100000 && can_loop; i++)
as open coded iter loop (when 'i' doesn't need to be precise).

Algorithm
---------
First of all:
   if (is_may_goto_insn_at(env, insn_idx)) {
+          update_loop_entry(cur, &sl->state);
           if (states_equal(env, &sl->state, cur, RANGE_WITHIN)) {
-                  update_loop_entry(cur, &sl->state);

It changes the definition of the verifier states loop.
Previously, we considered a state loop to be such a sequence of states
Si -> ... -> Sj -> ... -> Sk that states_equal(Si, Sk, RANGE_WITHIN)
is true.

With this change Si -> ... -> Sj -> ... Sk is a loop if call sites and
instruction pointers for Si and Sk match.

Whether or not Si and Sk are in the loop influences two things:
(a) if exact comparison is needed for states cache;
(b) if widening transformation could be applied to some scalars.

All pairs (Si, Sk) marked as a loop using old definition would be
marked as such using new definition (in a addition to some new pairs).

Hence it is safe to apply (a) and (b) in strictly more cases.

Note that update_loop_entry() relies on the following properties:
- every state in the current DFS path (except current)
  has branches > 0;
- states not in the DFS path are either:
  - in explored_states, are fully explored and have branches == 0;
  - in env->stack, are not yet explored and have branches == 0
    (and also not reachable from is_state_visited()).

With that the get_loop_entry() can be used to gate is_branch_taken() logic.
When the verifier sees 'r1 > 1000' inside the loop and it can predict it
instead of marking r1 as precise it widens both branches, so r1 becomes
[0, 1000] in fallthrough and [1001, UMAX] in other_branch.

Consider the loop:
    bpf_for_each(...) {
       if (r1 > 1000)
          break;

       arr[r1] = ..;
    }
At arr[r1] access the r1 is bounded and the loop can quickly converge.

Unfortunately compilers (both GCC and LLVM) often optimize loop exit
condition to equality, so
 for (i = 0; i < 100; i++) arr[i] = 1
becomes
 for (i = 0; i != 100; i++) arr[1] = 1

Hence treat != and == conditions specially in the verifier.
Widen only not-predicted branch and keep predict branch as is. Example:
  r1 = 0
  goto L1
L2:
  arr[r1] = 1
  r1++
L1:
  if r1 != 100 goto L2
  fallthrough: r1=100 after widening
  other_branch: r1 stays as-is (0, 1, 2, ..)

Also recognize the case where both LHS and RHS are constant and equal to each
other. In this case don't widen at all and take the predicted path.
This key heuristic allows the verifier detect loop end condition.
Such 'for (i = 0; i != 100; i++)' is validated just like bounded loop.

With that the users can use 'for (i = 0; ...' pattern everywhere
and many i = zero workarounds can be removed.

One tests has drastic improvement. The rest are noise.

File                  Insns (A)  Insns (B)  Insns     (DIFF)  States (A)  States (B)  States    (DIFF)
--------------------  ---------  ---------  ----------------  ----------  ----------  ----------------
iters_task_vma.bpf.o      22043        132  -21911 (-99.40%)        1006          10    -996 (-99.01%)

Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Remove i = zero workaround, improve arena based tests,
add asm test for this_branch_reg->id == other_branch_reg->id condition.

Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
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Upstream branch: e245ef8
series: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=855823
version: 3

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At least one diff in series https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=855823 expired. Closing PR.

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