libbpf: Add bpf_link__disconnect() API to preserve underlying BPF resource

There are cases in which BPF resource (program, map, etc) has to outlive
userspace program that "installed" it in the system in the first place.
When BPF program is attached, libbpf returns bpf_link object, which
is supposed to be destroyed after no longer necessary through
bpf_link__destroy() API. Currently, bpf_link destruction causes both automatic
detachment and frees up any resources allocated to for bpf_link in-memory
representation. This is inconvenient for the case described above because of
coupling of detachment and resource freeing.

This patch introduces bpf_link__disconnect() API call, which marks bpf_link as
disconnected from its underlying BPF resouces. This means that when bpf_link
is destroyed later, all its memory resources will be freed, but BPF resource
itself won't be detached.

This design allows to follow strict and resource-leak-free design by default,
while giving easy and straightforward way for user code to opt for keeping BPF
resource attached beyond lifetime of a bpf_link. For some BPF programs (i.e.,
FS-based tracepoints, kprobes, raw tracepoint, etc), user has to make sure to
pin BPF program to prevent kernel to automatically detach it on process exit.
This should typically be achived by pinning BPF program (or map in some cases)
in BPF FS.

Signed-off-by: Andrii Nakryiko <andriin@fb.com>
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Martin KaFai Lau <kafai@fb.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20191218225039.2668205-1-andriin@fb.com

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.map b/tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.map
index 1376d992a703..e3a471f38a71 100644
--- a/tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.map
+++ b/tools/lib/bpf/libbpf.map
@@ -212,6 +212,7 @@ LIBBPF_0.0.6 {
 LIBBPF_0.0.7 {
 	global:
 		btf_dump__emit_type_decl;
+		bpf_link__disconnect;
 		bpf_object__find_program_by_name;
 		bpf_object__attach_skeleton;
 		bpf_object__destroy_skeleton;