[PATCH v3] arm64: bpf: Force 8-byte alignment for JIT buffer to prevent atomic tearing

From: Fuad Tabba

Date: Thu Feb 26 2026 - 02:55:50 EST


struct bpf_plt contains a u64 target field. Currently, the BPF JIT
allocator requests an alignment of 4 bytes (sizeof(u32)) for the JIT
buffer.

Because the base address of the JIT buffer can be 4-byte aligned (e.g.,
ending in 0x4 or 0xc), the relative padding logic in build_plt() fails
to ensure that target lands on an 8-byte boundary.

This leads to two issues:
1. UBSAN reports misaligned-access warnings when dereferencing the
structure.
2. More critically, target is updated concurrently via WRITE_ONCE() in
bpf_arch_text_poke() while the JIT'd code executes ldr. On arm64,
64-bit loads/stores are only guaranteed to be single-copy atomic if
they are 64-bit aligned. A misaligned target risks a torn read,
causing the JIT to jump to a corrupted address.

Fix this by increasing the allocation alignment requirement to 8 bytes
(sizeof(u64)) in bpf_jit_binary_pack_alloc(). This anchors the base of
the JIT buffer to an 8-byte boundary, allowing the relative padding math
in build_plt() to correctly align the target field.

Fixes: b2ad54e1533e ("bpf, arm64: Implement bpf_arch_text_poke() for arm64")
Signed-off-by: Fuad Tabba <tabba@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/arm64/net/bpf_jit_comp.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/arch/arm64/net/bpf_jit_comp.c b/arch/arm64/net/bpf_jit_comp.c
index 356d33c7a4ae..adf84962d579 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/net/bpf_jit_comp.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/net/bpf_jit_comp.c
@@ -2119,7 +2119,7 @@ struct bpf_prog *bpf_int_jit_compile(struct bpf_prog *prog)
extable_offset = round_up(prog_size + PLT_TARGET_SIZE, extable_align);
image_size = extable_offset + extable_size;
ro_header = bpf_jit_binary_pack_alloc(image_size, &ro_image_ptr,
- sizeof(u32), &header, &image_ptr,
+ sizeof(u64), &header, &image_ptr,
jit_fill_hole);
if (!ro_header) {
prog = orig_prog;
--
2.53.0.414.gf7e9f6c205-goog