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Deploying the bpfd-operator

The bpfd-operator repository exists in order to deploy and manage bpfd within a Kubernetes cluster. This operator was built utilizing some great tooling provided by the operator-sdk library. A great first step in understanding some of the functionality can be to just run make help.

Deploy Locally via KIND

After reviewing the possible make targets it's quick and easy to get bpfd deployed locally on your system via a KIND cluster with:

cd bpfd/bpfd-operator
make run-on-kind

NOTE: By default, bpfd-operator deploys bpfd with CSI enabled. CSI requires Kubernetes v1.26 due to a PR (kubernetes/kubernetes#112597) that addresses a gRPC Protocol Error that was seen in the CSI client code and it doesn't appear to have been backported.

Deploy To Openshift Cluster

First deploy the operator with one of the following two options:

1. Manually with Kustomize

To install manually with Kustomize and raw manifests simply run the following commands. The Openshift cluster needs to be up and running and specified in ~/.kube/config file.

cd bpfd/bpfd-operator
make deploy-openshift

Which can then be cleaned up at a later time with:

make undeploy-openshift

2. Via the OLM bundle

The other option for installing the bpfd-operator is to install it using OLM bundle.

First setup the namespace and certificates for the operator with:

cd bpfd/bpfd-operator
oc apply -f ./hack/ocp-scc-hacks.yaml

Then use operator-sdk to install the bundle like so:

operator-sdk run bundle quay.io/bpfd/bpfd-operator-bundle:latest --namespace openshift-bpfd

Which can then be cleaned up at a later time with:

operator-sdk cleanup bpfd-operator

followed by

oc delete -f ./hack/ocp-scc-hacks.yaml

Verify the Installation

Independent of the method used to deploy, if the bpfd-operator came up successfully you will see the bpfd-daemon and bpfd-operator pods running without errors:

kubectl get pods -n bpfd
NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
bpfd-daemon-bt5xm                3/3     Running   0          130m
bpfd-daemon-ts7dr                3/3     Running   0          129m
bpfd-daemon-w24pr                3/3     Running   0          130m
bpfd-operator-78cf9c44c6-rv7f2   2/2     Running   0          132m

Deploy an eBPF Program to the cluster

To test the deployment simply deploy one of the sample xdpPrograms:

cd bpfd/bpfd-operator/
kubectl apply -f config/samples/bpfd.io_v1alpha1_xdp_pass_xdpprogram.yaml

If loading of the XDP Program to the selected nodes was successful it will be reported back to the user via the xdpProgram's status field:

kubectl get xdpprogram xdp-pass-all-nodes -o yaml
apiVersion: bpfd.dev/v1alpha1
kind: XdpProgram
metadata:
  annotations:
    kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration: |
      {"apiVersion":"bpfd.dev/v1alpha1","kind":"XdpProgram","metadata":{"annotations":{},"labels":{"app.kubernetes.io/name":"xdpprogram"},"name":"xdp-pass-all-nodes"},"spec":{"bpffunctionname":"pass","bytecode":{"image":{"url":"quay.io/bpfd-bytecode/xdp_pass:latest"}},"globaldata":{"GLOBAL_u32":[13,12,11,10],"GLOBAL_u8":[1]},"interfaceselector":{"primarynodeinterface":true},"nodeselector":{},"priority":0}}
  creationTimestamp: "2023-11-07T19:16:39Z"
  finalizers:
  - bpfd.dev.operator/finalizer
  generation: 2
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: xdpprogram
  name: xdp-pass-all-nodes
  resourceVersion: "157187"
  uid: 21c71a61-4e73-44eb-9b49-07af2866d25b
spec:
  bpffunctionname: pass
  bytecode:
    image:
      imagepullpolicy: IfNotPresent
      url: quay.io/bpfd-bytecode/xdp_pass:latest
  globaldata:
    GLOBAL_u8: AQ==
    GLOBAL_u32: DQwLCg==
  interfaceselector:
    primarynodeinterface: true
  mapownerselector: {}
  nodeselector: {}
  priority: 0
  proceedon:
  - pass
  - dispatcher_return
status:
  conditions:
  - lastTransitionTime: "2023-11-07T19:16:42Z"
    message: bpfProgramReconciliation Succeeded on all nodes
    reason: ReconcileSuccess
    status: "True"
    type: ReconcileSuccess

To see information in listing form simply run:

kubectl get xdpprogram -o wide
NAME                 BPFFUNCTIONNAME   NODESELECTOR   PRIORITY   INTERFACESELECTOR               PROCEEDON
xdp-pass-all-nodes   pass              {}             0          {"primarynodeinterface":true}   ["pass","dispatcher_return"]

API Types Overview

See api-spec.md for a more detailed description of all the bpfd Kubernetes API types.

Multiple Program CRDs

The multiple *Program CRDs are the bpfd Kubernetes API objects most relevant to users and can be used to understand clusterwide state for an eBPF program. It's designed to express how, and where eBPF programs are to be deployed within a Kubernetes cluster. Currently bpfd supports the use of xdpProgram, tcProgram and tracepointProgram objects.

BpfProgram CRD

The BpfProgram CRD is used internally by the bpfd-deployment to keep track of per node bpfd state such as map pin points, and to report node specific errors back to the user. Kubernetes users/controllers are only allowed to view these objects, NOT create or edit them.

Applications wishing to use bpfd to deploy/manage their eBPF programs in Kubernetes will make use of this object to find references to the bpfMap pin points (spec.maps) in order to configure their eBPF programs.