eBPF functionality is only supported on Linux, current…

Error message

eBPF functionality is only supported on Linux, current platform is not Linux

What it means

ErrEBPFSupportedOnlyOnLinux is a sentinel error declared in the build-tagged file ebpf_other.go (//go:build !linux). On any non-Linux platform, EbpfEngineLoad and getBootTimeNanos return this error because the eBPF implementation only compiles/works on Linux. It is a deliberate platform guard, not a runtime fault.

Solutions

Run the component on Linux (the only supported platform for eBPF features)
Guard eBPF startup with runtime.GOOS check and skip/disable the feature gracefully
Use a Linux VM/container for local development
If the error appears on Linux, verify build tags didn't pick ebpf_other.go (wrong GOOS at build time)

Example fix

// before
if err := ebpf.EbpfEngineLoad(dir, logLevel, acId); err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }
// after
if err := ebpf.EbpfEngineLoad(dir, logLevel, acId); err != nil {
    if errors.Is(err, ebpf.ErrEBPFSupportedOnlyOnLinux) {
        log.Warn("eBPF disabled: unsupported platform")
        return nil
    }
    return err
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: fallback

Validate before calling

if runtime.GOOS != "linux" { return ebpf.ErrEBPFSupportedOnlyOnLinux } // guard before loading

Type guard

func ebpfSupported() bool { return runtime.GOOS == "linux" }

Try / catch

if err := EbpfEngineLoad(dir, lvl, id); err != nil { if errors.Is(err, ErrEBPFSupportedOnlyOnLinux) { disableEbpfGracefully(); return nil }; return err }

Prevention

Gate eBPF init behind runtime.GOOS == "linux"
Treat ErrEBPFSupportedOnlyOnLinux as a feature-disable signal, not a crash
Use errors.Is against the sentinel rather than string matching
Build/test on Linux CI for eBPF paths

When it happens

Trigger: Calling EbpfEngineLoad(dirPath, logLevel, acId) or getBootTimeNanos on macOS/Windows (or any GOOS != linux) build; importing the endpoints/ac/ebpf package and starting eBPF-based access control on a dev laptop.

Common situations: Developers running nhp-ac locally on macOS for debugging; CI on non-Linux runners; forgetting that ebpf features are silently stubbed out via build tags.

Understand the failure class

Background: "unsupported platform" / "not supported on this platform" errors: what they mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 47 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of OpenNHP/opennhp@6e04ca5ff0 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9b1251eeec70beb2. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at nhp/utils/ebpf/ebpf_other.go:7

//go:build !linux

package ebpf

import "fmt"

var ErrEBPFSupportedOnlyOnLinux = fmt.Errorf("eBPF functionality is only supported on Linux, current platform is not Linux")

func getBootTimeNanos() (uint64, error) {
	ttlSec := 1222222222222
	return uint64(ttlSec), ErrEBPFSupportedOnlyOnLinux
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 6e04ca5ff0)