tcpdump mailing list archives
Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings
From: "Paul \"LeoNerd\" Evans" <leonerd () leonerd org uk>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 16:08:33 +0100
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 23:17:20 +1000 Darren Reed <darrenr () netbsd org> wrote:
BPF & IPv6 ---------- The problem with IPv6 and BPF is that the transport header (TCP, UDP, etc) can have a number of extension headers between it and the network header that is present for IPv6. There's no hints in the IPv6 header as to how many of these extension headers there are, or how many bytes the extension header(s) take up. This leaves BPF in a precarious situation because it cannot be reliably used to match on layer 4 packets. What's missing is the ability to either find a specific header after the IPv6 network header or just to determine what the last one is.
... If you're considering extending BPF to better suit IPv6, have you seen either of my proposed ideas? 1) Add a LOOP instruction that allows certain kinds of backward-directed jumps, in order to efficiently implement the IPv6 header-chain walking without needing manual loop unrolling, while still giving static guarantees about eventual termination of the program. 2) A few more AD constants added to the Linux "auxdata" area, giving information about the transport layer. Both of these ideas are ones I've tried to point either Linux or FreeBSD in the direction of, and received almost total silence on. If you did want to make some direct impact on making IPv6 easier to handle, I'd suggest either or both of these would make a great start. -- Paul "LeoNerd" Evans leonerd () leonerd org uk http://www.leonerd.org.uk/ | https://metacpan.org/author/PEVANS _______________________________________________ tcpdump-workers mailing list tcpdump-workers () lists tcpdump org https://lists.sandelman.ca/mailman/listinfo/tcpdump-workers
Current thread:
- BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Darren Reed (Jun 10)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Paul "LeoNerd" Evans (Jun 10)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Darren Reed (Jun 11)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Paul "LeoNerd" Evans (Jun 11)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Michael Richardson (Jun 11)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Darren Reed (Jun 11)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Paul "LeoNerd" Evans (Jun 10)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Mindaugas Rasiukevicius (Jun 10)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Guy Harris (Jun 10)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Paul "LeoNerd" Evans (Jun 11)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Darren Reed (Jun 11)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Paul "LeoNerd" Evans (Jun 11)
- Re: BPF Extended: addressing BPF's shortcomings Guy Harris (Jun 10)