From: Hannes Laimer <h.laimer@proxmox.com>
To: pve-devel@lists.proxmox.com
Subject: [PATCH container/docs/manager/network/proxmox{-ebpf,-perl-rs,-ve-rs}/qemu-server v4 00/20] sdn: implement DHCP for all zones using eBPF
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2026 10:44:25 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261021084445.462195-1-h.laimer@proxmox.com> (raw)
This series adds a second DHCP backend, ebpf, next to dnsmasq. A zone
picks its backend. dnsmasq stays limited to simple zones, while ebpf
answers on the guest's own interface and works on every zone type. A
guest on a zone with the ebpf backend gets the address its NIC has in
the IPAM. There is no daemon per zone and no lease file. The answers
are held in the kernel and do not depend on the IPAM being reachable.
The responder is a BPF program on the ingress of each guest interface
of a zone with the ebpf backend. It answers a request from the record
of that interface, and the exchange never reaches the bridge. A
request whose client MAC is not the interface's own passes on
unanswered. So a guest cannot read another guest's record, and a
nested client does not get the outer guest's address.
An edit through /cluster/sdn/vnets/{vnet}/ips is proxied to the
guest's node and updates the backend there. The guest sees the change
at its next renewal, so the lease time bounds how long an old answer
survives. Subnets get a dhcp-lease-time property for both backends.
Without it dnsmasq hands out infinite leases and the responder ten
minutes. An apply attaches the responder to running guests, so a zone
switched to ebpf serves them without a restart.
Changes reach the kernel in the order they read their input. So no
change overwrites a newer one with older input. A hotplug moves the
interface before the guest config names the new bridge. An apply or an
edit that read the older config in between leaves the moved interface
as its plug left it. A change that fails only warns, and what was
served stays served. Nothing of the responder survives a reboot, so it
is loaded again at boot before the guests start.
Only DHCPv4 is answered. A request the guest tagged itself passes
unanswered as well, so a trunk port keeps working as before. The
request is answered on the guest interface, so the guest's firewall
rules, its DHCP firewall option and its rate limit do not apply to it.
The reply leaves through the interface's egress, where the rate limit
shapes it. A request the responder does not answer passes on to the
bridge and through the firewall as before. Mappings changed directly
in an external IPAM are not picked up, as with dnsmasq.
In patch order, the series adds
- proxmox-ebpf, the dhcp subsystem, a tc program answering on the
guest interface and the per-interface map it answers from
- pve-rs, the bindings
- pve-network, the ebpf backend, the hooks that keep a backend current
when a guest interface or a mapping changes, dhcp on every zone
type, and fixes to the dnsmasq reservations and the MAC cache
- qemu-server and pve-container, the reports of a guest NIC coming,
going or moving, and for VMs the push at a migration's resume
- pve-manager, the backend and subnet options in the UI, and the
backends brought up at boot ahead of the guests
- proxmox-ve-rs, the ebpf variant of the dhcp backend type
- pve-docs, documentation
- proxmox-ebpf applies on top of the v4 of its own series [1]
- pve-rs needs proxmox-ebpf with the dhcp feature
- pve-network needs pve-rs, at build and run time
- qemu-server, pve-container and pve-manager need pve-network
- proxmox-ve-config needs nothing, and proxmox-firewall needs its
dependency on it bumped, since an older one fails to parse a zone
with the ebpf backend and the firewall then cannot load its config
An older pve-network fails its apply on the unknown backend, so every
node needs the new one before a zone gets ebpf.
Changes since v3, thanks @Stefan!:
* a mapping edit runs on the guest's node instead of being pushed to
it, the node endpoint is gone
* the MAC cache is read and written with lower-case keys, and its
three fixes are three commits
* the guest NIC list is keyed by MAC
* add the missing proxmox-ve-rs patch, the ebpf variant of the dhcp
backend type
* reword log lines and warnings
* (notes on patches with changes)
Changes since v2:
* drop the generation counter. Every change takes the responder's
lock before it reads its input instead. An edit takes it
exclusively
* the resume at the end of a live migration pushes the guest's
mappings again on the target, so an edit made during the migration
reaches it
* new first pve-network commit, a dnsmasq fix that replaces a stale
reservation of another MAC instead of dropping it
* no MTU option for a zone without an MTU, where v2 handed out 1500
* a mapping edit without a MAC no longer reaches the backends
* rewrite commit messages, cover letter and parts of the docs
* rebase onto current master
(pre-build packages on sani)
[1] https://lore.proxmox.com/pve-devel/20261019142413.2255644-1-h.laimer@proxmox.com/
proxmox-ebpf:
Hannes Laimer (2):
dhcp: add the per-tap DHCPv4 responder program
dhcp: add the subsystem that loads the responder and keeps its records
Cargo.toml | 5 +
debian/control | 6 +-
src/bpf-shim/bpf/bpf_helpers.h | 3 +
src/bpf-shim/vmlinux.h | 1 +
src/dhcp/bpf/dhcp.bpf.c | 401 ++++++++++++
src/dhcp/bpf/types.h | 24 +
src/dhcp/mod.rs | 1037 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
src/dhcp/types.rs | 64 ++
src/lib.rs | 3 +
src/subsystem.rs | 2 +-
tests/common/mod.rs | 63 +-
tests/dhcp.rs | 825 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
12 files changed, 2428 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 src/dhcp/bpf/dhcp.bpf.c
create mode 100644 src/dhcp/bpf/types.h
create mode 100644 src/dhcp/mod.rs
create mode 100644 src/dhcp/types.rs
create mode 100644 tests/dhcp.rs
proxmox-perl-rs:
Hannes Laimer (1):
pve-rs: sdn: add bindings for the eBPF DHCP responder
pve-rs/Cargo.toml | 2 +
pve-rs/Makefile | 3 +
pve-rs/debian/control | 2 +
pve-rs/src/bindings/sdn/dhcp.rs | 229 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
pve-rs/src/bindings/sdn/mod.rs | 1 +
5 files changed, 237 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 pve-rs/src/bindings/sdn/dhcp.rs
pve-network:
Hannes Laimer (11):
sdn: ipam: stop caching IPAM misses
sdn: ipam: write the lookup's cache entry under the cluster lock
sdn: ipam: key the MAC cache by lower-case MAC
sdn: dhcp: replace a stale dnsmasq reservation instead of dropping it
sdn: dhcp: update reservations when ip mappings change
sdn: dhcp: make the lease time configurable per subnet
sdn: dhcp: require a backend only if a zone on this node uses it
sdn: dhcp: add an eBPF backend answering on each guest interface
sdn: zones: report interface plugs and unplugs to the DHCP backends
sdn: dhcp: run IP mapping edits on the guest's node
sdn: zones: allow the ebpf DHCP backend on every zone type
debian/libpve-network-perl.prerm | 13 +
src/PVE/API2/Network/SDN/Ips.pm | 23 +
src/PVE/API2/Network/SDN/Zones.pm | 11 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Dhcp.pm | 139 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Dhcp/Dnsmasq.pm | 106 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Dhcp/Ebpf.pm | 295 +++++
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Dhcp/Makefile | 2 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Dhcp/Plugin.pm | 26 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Ipams.pm | 50 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/SubnetPlugin.pm | 11 +
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Vnets.pm | 5 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Zones.pm | 29 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Zones/EvpnPlugin.pm | 32 +
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Zones/FaucetPlugin.pm | 1 +
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Zones/QinQPlugin.pm | 7 +
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Zones/SimplePlugin.pm | 2 +-
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Zones/VlanPlugin.pm | 7 +
src/PVE/Network/SDN/Zones/VxlanPlugin.pm | 25 +
src/test/run_test_vnets_blackbox.pl | 1464 ++++++++++++++++++++-
19 files changed, 2169 insertions(+), 79 deletions(-)
create mode 100755 debian/libpve-network-perl.prerm
create mode 100644 src/PVE/Network/SDN/Dhcp/Ebpf.pm
qemu-server:
Hannes Laimer (1):
network: sdn: keep the DHCP backends current on guest NICs
src/PVE/CLI/qm.pm | 4 ++--
src/PVE/QemuServer.pm | 4 ++++
src/PVE/QemuServer/Network.pm | 19 +++++++++++++++++--
src/PVE/QemuServer/RunState.pm | 2 ++
src/usr/pve-bridge | 8 +++++++-
src/usr/pve-bridgedown | 4 ++--
6 files changed, 34 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
pve-container:
Hannes Laimer (1):
net: report NIC plugs and removals to the SDN DHCP backends
src/PVE/LXC.pm | 13 +++++++++++--
src/PVE/LXC/Config.pm | 3 ++-
src/lxc-pve-poststop-hook | 6 +++---
3 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
pve-manager:
Hannes Laimer (2):
ui: sdn: add zone DHCP backend selector and subnet DHCP options
sdn: bring up the DHCP backends at boot before the guests start
bin/pve-sdn-commit | 4 ++++
services/pve-sdn-commit.service | 1 +
www/manager6/sdn/SubnetEdit.js | 23 +++++++++++++++++++++++
www/manager6/sdn/zones/Base.js | 17 +++++++++++++++++
www/manager6/sdn/zones/SimpleEdit.js | 11 -----------
5 files changed, 45 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
proxmox-ve-rs:
Hannes Laimer (1):
ve-config: sdn: add the ebpf dhcp backend
proxmox-ve-config/src/sdn/config.rs | 3 +++
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)
pve-docs:
Hannes Laimer (1):
sdn: dhcp: add eBPF backend section
pvesdn.adoc | 101 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
1 file changed, 83 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
Summary over all repositories:
52 files changed, 5015 insertions(+), 127 deletions(-)
--
Generated by murpp 0.12.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-10-21 8:45 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-10-21 8:44 Hannes Laimer [this message]
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH proxmox-ebpf v4 01/20] dhcp: add the per-tap DHCPv4 responder program Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH proxmox-ebpf v4 02/20] dhcp: add the subsystem that loads the responder and keeps its records Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH proxmox-perl-rs v4 03/20] pve-rs: sdn: add bindings for the eBPF DHCP responder Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 04/20] sdn: ipam: stop caching IPAM misses Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 05/20] sdn: ipam: write the lookup's cache entry under the cluster lock Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 06/20] sdn: ipam: key the MAC cache by lower-case MAC Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 07/20] sdn: dhcp: replace a stale dnsmasq reservation instead of dropping it Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 08/20] sdn: dhcp: update reservations when ip mappings change Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 09/20] sdn: dhcp: make the lease time configurable per subnet Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 10/20] sdn: dhcp: require a backend only if a zone on this node uses it Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 11/20] sdn: dhcp: add an eBPF backend answering on each guest interface Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 12/20] sdn: zones: report interface plugs and unplugs to the DHCP backends Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 13/20] sdn: dhcp: run IP mapping edits on the guest's node Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-network v4 14/20] sdn: zones: allow the ebpf DHCP backend on every zone type Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH qemu-server v4 15/20] network: sdn: keep the DHCP backends current on guest NICs Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-container v4 16/20] net: report NIC plugs and removals to the SDN DHCP backends Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-manager v4 17/20] ui: sdn: add zone DHCP backend selector and subnet DHCP options Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-manager v4 18/20] sdn: bring up the DHCP backends at boot before the guests start Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH proxmox-ve-rs v4 19/20] ve-config: sdn: add the ebpf dhcp backend Hannes Laimer
2026-10-21 8:44 ` [PATCH pve-docs v4 20/20] sdn: dhcp: add eBPF backend section Hannes Laimer
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