bpfilter.ko consists of bpfilter_kern.c (normal kernel module code)
and user mode helper code that is embedded into bpfilter.ko
The steps to build bpfilter.ko are the following:
- main.c is compiled by HOSTCC into the bpfilter_umh elf executable file
- with quite a bit of objcopy and Makefile magic the bpfilter_umh elf file
is converted into bpfilter_umh.o object file
with _binary_net_bpfilter_bpfilter_umh_start and _end symbols
Example:
$ nm ./bld_x64/net/bpfilter/bpfilter_umh.o
0000000000004cf8 T _binary_net_bpfilter_bpfilter_umh_end
0000000000004cf8 A _binary_net_bpfilter_bpfilter_umh_size
0000000000000000 T _binary_net_bpfilter_bpfilter_umh_start
- bpfilter_umh.o and bpfilter_kern.o are linked together into bpfilter.ko
bpfilter_kern.c is a normal kernel module code that calls
the fork_usermode_blob() helper to execute part of its own data
as a user mode process.
Notice that _binary_net_bpfilter_bpfilter_umh_start - end
is placed into .init.rodata section, so it's freed as soon as __init
function of bpfilter.ko is finished.
As part of __init the bpfilter.ko does first request/reply action
via two unix pipe provided by fork_usermode_blob() helper to
make sure that umh is healthy. If not it will kill it via pid.
Later bpfilter_process_sockopt() will be called from bpfilter hooks
in get/setsockopt() to pass iptable commands into umh via bpfilter.ko
If admin does 'rmmod bpfilter' the __exit code bpfilter.ko will
kill umh as well.
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Alexei Starovoitov