Instruction encoding
====================
-eBPF uses 64-bit instructions with the following encoding:
+eBPF has two instruction encodings:
+
+ * the basic instruction encoding, which uses 64 bits to encode an instruction
+ * the wide instruction encoding, which appends a second 64-bit immediate value
+ (imm64) after the basic instruction for a total of 128 bits.
+
+The basic instruction encoding looks as follows:
============= ======= =============== ==================== ============
32 bits (MSB) 16 bits 4 bits 4 bits 8 bits (LSB)
============= ===== ====================================
mode modifier value description
============= ===== ====================================
- BPF_IMM 0x00 used for 64-bit mov
+ BPF_IMM 0x00 64-bit immediate instructions
BPF_ABS 0x20 legacy BPF packet access (absolute)
BPF_IND 0x40 legacy BPF packet access (indirect)
BPF_MEM 0x60 regular load and store operations
referring to the exclusive-add operation encoded when the immediate field is
zero.
-16-byte instructions
---------------------
+64-bit immediate instructions
+-----------------------------
+
+Instructions with the ``BPF_IMM`` mode modifier use the wide instruction
+encoding for an extra imm64 value.
+
+There is currently only one such instruction.
+
+``BPF_LD | BPF_DW | BPF_IMM`` means::
+
+ dst_reg = imm64
-eBPF has one 16-byte instruction: ``BPF_LD | BPF_DW | BPF_IMM`` which consists
-of two consecutive ``struct bpf_insn`` 8-byte blocks and interpreted as single
-instruction that loads 64-bit immediate value into a dst_reg.
Legacy BPF Packet access instructions
-------------------------------------