[PATCH] bpf: Fix alignment of memory allocator objects on 32-bit archs

From: Felix Fietkau

Date: Fri Jul 17 2026 - 15:01:15 EST


The BPF memory allocator prefixes each object with a header that holds
struct llist_node while the object sits on a free list, and a pointer
to the owning bpf_mem_cache while it is allocated. The header size was
sizeof(struct llist_node), so on 32-bit architectures the memory handed
out was offset by 4 bytes from the 8-byte aligned kmalloc allocation.

The verifier assumes that allocated objects are 8-byte aligned and
allows BPF_DW atomic instructions on their u64 fields, e.g. on values
of non-preallocated hash maps, objects from bpf_obj_new() and local
storage. On arm32 the JIT does not implement atomics, and the
interpreter executes them via atomic64_*(), which are implemented with
LDREXD/STREXD on ARMv6K and later. Those instructions require 8-byte
aligned addresses; a misaligned address raises an alignment fault and
crashes the kernel.

Pad the header to 8 bytes to preserve the alignment provided by
kmalloc. Store the percpu pointer of percpu objects at the new header
offset instead of assuming the header is pointer-sized, and update the
copy of the header size used by the hash map memory usage accounting.

Fixes: 7c8199e24fa0 ("bpf: Introduce any context BPF specific memory allocator.")
Reported-by: Thibaut VARÈNE <hacks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reported-by: Stijn Tintel <stijn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Felix Fietkau <nbd@xxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/bpf/hashtab.c | 2 +-
kernel/bpf/memalloc.c | 8 ++++----
2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/bpf/hashtab.c b/kernel/bpf/hashtab.c
index 3dd9b4924ae4..900c1851d264 100644
--- a/kernel/bpf/hashtab.c
+++ b/kernel/bpf/hashtab.c
@@ -2337,7 +2337,7 @@ static u64 htab_map_mem_usage(const struct bpf_map *map)
else if (!lru)
usage += sizeof(struct htab_elem *) * num_possible_cpus();
} else {
-#define LLIST_NODE_SZ sizeof(struct llist_node)
+#define LLIST_NODE_SZ ALIGN(sizeof(struct llist_node), 8)

num_entries = htab->use_percpu_counter ?
percpu_counter_sum(&htab->pcount) :
diff --git a/kernel/bpf/memalloc.c b/kernel/bpf/memalloc.c
index e9662db7198f..ca7555b1da34 100644
--- a/kernel/bpf/memalloc.c
+++ b/kernel/bpf/memalloc.c
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
* Every allocated objected is padded with extra 8 bytes that contains
* struct llist_node.
*/
-#define LLIST_NODE_SZ sizeof(struct llist_node)
+#define LLIST_NODE_SZ ALIGN(sizeof(struct llist_node), 8)

#define BPF_MEM_ALLOC_SIZE_MAX 4096

@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ static struct llist_node notrace *__llist_del_first(struct llist_head *head)
static void *__alloc(struct bpf_mem_cache *c, int node, gfp_t flags)
{
if (c->percpu_size) {
- void __percpu **obj = kmalloc_node(c->percpu_size, flags, node);
+ void *obj = kmalloc_node(c->percpu_size, flags, node);
void __percpu *pptr = __alloc_percpu_gfp(c->unit_size, 8, flags);

if (!obj || !pptr) {
@@ -150,7 +150,7 @@ static void *__alloc(struct bpf_mem_cache *c, int node, gfp_t flags)
kfree(obj);
return NULL;
}
- obj[1] = pptr;
+ *(void __percpu **)(obj + LLIST_NODE_SZ) = pptr;
return obj;
}

@@ -257,7 +257,7 @@ static void alloc_bulk(struct bpf_mem_cache *c, int cnt, int node, bool atomic)
static void free_one(void *obj, bool percpu)
{
if (percpu)
- free_percpu(((void __percpu **)obj)[1]);
+ free_percpu(*(void __percpu **)(obj + LLIST_NODE_SZ));

kfree(obj);
}
--
2.51.0