linux/include
Jordan Rife 509ca545d4 bpf: Support BPF_F_EGRESS with bpf_redirect_peer
We have several use cases where a pod injects traffic into the datapath
of another so that the traffic appears to have originated from that
pod. One such use case is a synthetic flow generator which injects
synthetic traffic into a pod's datapath to enable dynamic probing and
debugging. Another is a transparent proxy where connections originating
from one pod are redirected towards another which proxies that
connection. The new connection is bound to the IP of the original pod
using IP_TRANSPARENT and its traffic is injected into that pod's
datapath and handled as if it had originated there. This can be used for
mTLS, etc.

We use bpf_redirect(BPF_F_INGRESS) to direct traffic leaving the proxy,
flow generator, etc. towards the target pod, ensuring that eBPF programs
that are meant to intercept traffic leaving that pod are executed.
However, this doesn't work with netkit.

With netkit, an ingress redirection from proxy to workload skips eBPF
programs that are meant to intercept traffic leaving the pod, since they
reside on the netkit peer device. One workaround is to attach the
same program to both the netkit peer device and the TCX ingress hook for
the netkit pair's primary interface, but

a) This seems hacky and we need to be careful not to run the same
   program twice for the same skb in cases where we want to pass that
   traffic to the host stack.
b) We're trying to keep the proxy redirection / traffic injection
   systems as modular and separated from Cilium as possible, the system
   that manages netkit setup and core eBPF programming.

It would be handy if instead we could redirect traffic directly from
one netkit peer device to another. This patch proposes an extension
to bpf_redirect_peer to allow us to do just that.

With this patch, the BPF_F_EGRESS flag tells bpf_redirect_peer to emit
the skb in the egress direction of the target interface's peer device
While the main use case is netkit, I suppose you could also use this
mode with veth as well if, e.g., there were some eBPF programs attached
to that side of the veth pair that needed to intercept traffic.

 +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | +-------------------------+         6. bpf_redirect_neigh(eth0)     |
 | | pod (10.244.0.10)       |           ------------------------      |
 | |                         |          |                        |     |
 | |              +--------+ |          |      +---------+       |     |
 | | 1. packet -->|        | |          |      |         |       |     |
 | |    leaves ^  | netkit |<===========|======| netkit  |       |     |
 | |           |  | peer   |=======(eBPF)=====>| primary |       |     |
 | |           |  |        | |          |      |         |       |     |
 | |           |  +--------+ |          |      +---------+       |     |
 | |           |             |          | 2. bpf_redirect        v     |
 | +-----------|-------------+          |___________________   +-------|
 |             |                                            |  | eth0  |
 |             | 5. bpf_redirect_peer(BPF_F_EGRESS)         |  +-------|
 |             |________________________                    |          |
 | +-------------------------+          |                   |          |
 | | proxy (10.244.0.11)     |          |                   |          |
 | | IP_TRANSPARENT          |          |                   |          |
 | |              +--------+ |          |      +---------+  |          |
 | | 3. packet <--|        | |          |      |         |<--          |
 | |    enters    | netkit |<===========|======| netkit  |             |
 | |    [proxy]   | peer   |=======(eBPF)=====>| primary |             |
 | | 4. packet -->|        | |                 |         |             |
 | |    leaves    +--------+ |                 +---------+             |
 | |    sip=10.244.0.10      |                                         |
 | +-------------------------+                                         |
 +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

Using the proxy use case as an example, in step 5 we would redirect
traffic leaving the proxy towards the pod's peer device using
bpf_redirect_peer(BPF_F_EGRESS).

As a bonus, since the skb doesn't have to go through the backlog queue
it can take full advantage of netkit's performance benefits. I set up a
test where outgoing iperf3 traffic is injected into the datapath of
another pod using either bpf_redirect_peer(BPF_F_EGRESS) or
bpf_redirect(BPF_F_INGRESS). I used Cilium's eBPF host routing mode
which skips the host stack and uses BPF redirect helpers to do all the
routing.

  (net.ipv4.tcp_congestion_control=cubic,mtu=1500,100GiB link,Cilium
   eBPF host routing mode)

BASELINE [bpf_redirect(BPF_F_INGRESS)]
  1. [iperf pod] ==bpf_redirect([pod b], BPF_F_INGRESS)==> [pod b]
  2. [pod b]     ==bpf_redirect_neigh([eth0])==>           eth0
  3. eth0        ==over network==>                         [host b]

  [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
  [  5]   0.00-60.00  sec   231 GBytes  33.0 Gbits/sec  12060     sender
  [  5]   0.00-60.00  sec   230 GBytes  33.0 Gbits/sec            receiver

TEST [bpf_redirect_peer(BPF_F_EGRESS)]
  1. [iperf pod] ==bpf_redirect_peer([pod b], BPF_F_EGRESS)==> [pod b]
  2. [pod b]     ==bpf_redirect_neigh([eth0])==>               eth0
  3. eth0        ==over network==>                             [host b]

  [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
  [  5]   0.00-60.00  sec   272 GBytes  38.9 Gbits/sec    0       sender
  [  5]   0.00-60.00  sec   272 GBytes  38.9 Gbits/sec            receiver

In this test, using bpf_redirect_peer(BPF_F_EGRESS) for the hop from
[iperf pod] to [pod b] led to ~18% more throughput compared to
bpf_redirect(BPF_F_INGRESS).

Signed-off-by: Jordan Rife <jordan@jrife.io>
Acked-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
Acked-by: Paul Chaignon <paul.chaignon@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Jiayuan Chen <jiayuan.chen@linux.dev>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260618182035.43811-2-jordan@jrife.io
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
2026-06-25 17:39:35 -07:00
..
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asm-generic mm.git review status for mm-hotfixes-stable..mm-nonmm-stable 2026-06-21 13:20:19 -07:00
clocksource
crypto Networking changes for 7.2. 2026-06-17 08:17:00 +01:00
cxl cxl/region: Introduce devm_cxl_probe_mem() 2026-06-12 13:47:30 -07:00
drm drm-next for 7.2-rc1 2026-06-17 10:21:00 +01:00
dt-bindings This is all clk driver updates. Mostly new SoC support for 2026-06-25 12:48:57 -07:00
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keys keys: Pin request_key_auth payload in instantiate paths 2026-06-15 15:19:13 +03:00
kunit linux_kselftest-kunit-7.2-rc1 2026-06-16 16:33:57 +05:30
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linux This is all clk driver updates. Mostly new SoC support for 2026-06-25 12:48:57 -07:00
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media media: v4l2-fwnode: Fix subdev owner overwritten in v4l2_async_register_subdev_sensor() 2026-06-05 10:28:03 +03:00
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target
trace f2fs-for-7.2-rc1 2026-06-23 17:59:36 -07:00
uapi bpf: Support BPF_F_EGRESS with bpf_redirect_peer 2026-06-25 17:39:35 -07:00
ufs Merge branch 7.1/scsi-fixes into 7.2/scsi-staging 2026-06-15 21:01:30 -04:00
vdso futex: Provide infrastructure to plug the non contended robust futex unlock race 2026-06-03 11:38:52 +02:00
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