[Ecn-sane] Fwd: [PATCH net] ipv4: Ignore ECN bits for fib lookups in fib_compute_spec_dst()

[Rodney W. Grimes]

Dave,
	Thanks for the heads up on this...

	Comments in line about what, IMHO, is very bad practice.

Regards,
Rod

> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Guillaume Nault <gnault at redhat.com>
> Date: Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 11:05 AM
> Subject: [PATCH net] ipv4: Ignore ECN bits for fib lookups in
> fib_compute_spec_dst()
> To: David Miller <davem at davemloft.net>, Jakub Kicinski <kuba at kernel.org>
> Cc: <netdev at vger.kernel.org>
> 
> 
> RT_TOS() only clears one of the ECN bits. Therefore, when
> fib_compute_spec_dst() resorts to a fib lookup, it can return
> different results depending on the value of the second ECN bit.
> 
> For example, ECT(0) and ECT(1) packets could be treated differently.
> 
>   $ ip netns add ns0
>   $ ip netns add ns1
>   $ ip link add name veth01 netns ns0 type veth peer name veth10 netns ns1
>   $ ip -netns ns0 link set dev lo up
>   $ ip -netns ns1 link set dev lo up
>   $ ip -netns ns0 link set dev veth01 up
>   $ ip -netns ns1 link set dev veth10 up
> 
>   $ ip -netns ns0 address add 192.0.2.10/24 dev veth01
>   $ ip -netns ns1 address add 192.0.2.11/24 dev veth10
> 
>   $ ip -netns ns1 address add 192.0.2.21/32 dev lo
>   $ ip -netns ns1 route add 192.0.2.10/32 tos 4 dev veth10 src 192.0.2.21
>   $ ip netns exec ns1 sysctl -wq net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts=0
> 
> With TOS 4 and ECT(1), ns1 replies using source address 192.0.2.21
> (ping uses -Q to set all TOS and ECN bits):
> 
>   $ ip netns exec ns0 ping -c 1 -b -Q 5 192.0.2.255
>   [...]
>   64 bytes from 192.0.2.21: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.544 ms
> 
> But with TOS 4 and ECT(0), ns1 replies using source address 192.0.2.11
> because the "tos 4" route isn't matched:
> 
>   $ ip netns exec ns0 ping -c 1 -b -Q 6 192.0.2.255
>   [...]
>   64 bytes from 192.0.2.11: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.597 ms
> 
> After this patch the ECN bits don't affect the result anymore:
> 
>   $ ip netns exec ns0 ping -c 1 -b -Q 6 192.0.2.255
>   [...]
>   64 bytes from 192.0.2.21: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.591 ms
> 
> Fixes: 35ebf65e851c ("ipv4: Create and use fib_compute_spec_dst() helper.")
> Signed-off-by: Guillaume Nault <gnault at redhat.com>
> ---
>  net/ipv4/fib_frontend.c | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/net/ipv4/fib_frontend.c b/net/ipv4/fib_frontend.c
> index cdf6ec5aa45d..84bb707bd88d 100644
> --- a/net/ipv4/fib_frontend.c
> +++ b/net/ipv4/fib_frontend.c
> @@ -292,7 +292,7 @@ __be32 fib_compute_spec_dst(struct sk_buff *skb)
>                         .flowi4_iif = LOOPBACK_IFINDEX,
>                         .flowi4_oif = l3mdev_master_ifindex_rcu(dev),
>                         .daddr = ip_hdr(skb)->saddr,
> -                       .flowi4_tos = RT_TOS(ip_hdr(skb)->tos),
> +                       .flowi4_tos = ip_hdr(skb)->tos & IPTOS_RT_MASK,

This is, IMHO, a bad way to fix this.  It addresses the issue
by NOT using what should be the standard method of accessing
tos bits.  And further if RT_TOS is every properly fixed leaves
a dangling place that would need to be cleaned up later.

I understand that RT_TOS is legacy and returns the whole byte,
that should probably be corrected as I suspect there are other
lurking cases of use of RT_TOS that is also still consuming
the ECN bits.

The above one line patch is the "fast and dirty" way to
do it, and leads to longer term maintainance issues.

I assert this Opinion from my experience in trying
to clean up IN_ADDR macros in the BSD's, 90% of what
needing patching was caused mostly by special cases 
that didnt use the macros, and instead did there own
bit banging with | and &.

A better fix might be to create some new macros, make the
old macro emmit a compile time warning to weed out the
bad use cases:
a)  Modify RT_TOS to assert a compile time warning to
    flag old usage.

b)  create RT_TOSBYTE, this returns the whole byte, used
    to replace RT_TOS when the whole byte is needed and
    dealt with properly.

c)  create RT_TOSTOSBITS, this returns ONLY the TOS bits,
    and probably should replace most of the current calls
    to RT_TOS with this, after inspecting the code to
    make sure it does the right thing.

d)  create RT_TOSECNBITS, this returns ONLY the ECN bits

>                         .flowi4_scope = scope,
>                         .flowi4_mark = vmark ? skb->mark : 0,
>                 };
> --
> 2.21.3
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public
> relations, for Mother Nature cannot be fooled" - Richard Feynman
> 
> dave at taht.net <Dave T?ht> CTO, TekLibre, LLC Tel: 1-831-435-0729
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> 

-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org