netdev - Re: PROBLEM: skb

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Date:	Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:35:52 +0200
From:	"Santiago Font Arquer" <sfa.linux@...il.com>
To:	"Herbert Xu" <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>
Cc:	netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: PROBLEM: skb_clone SMP race?

Thank you.
I was thinking about something like that when I said "not find
explicit checks", but I was confused because the sk_buff code is
plenty of explicit checks and I understood those checks as a try to
make the code self-protected against wrong uses: "I, sk_buff, offer
you this interface. Don´t worry too much about my internals: I will
complain on your mistakes"

The fact the name of the functionality is generic "fast_clone" and not
specific "tcp_fast_clone" drove me to think: "Ok, the allocation of
fast-clonable skbs is NOW only in ONE place inside TCP code and sure
that they have the implicit checks to avoid this race when they call
skb_clone, but -NOW- and -ONE- are not a big guarantee..."

A newbie's thought. :)



2007/10/11, Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>:
> Santiago Font Arquer <sfa.linux@...il.com> wrote:
> >
> >   If an skb with fast clone available (first "if" true) has
> > references in different CPUs (skb->users>1) (I do not find explicit
> > checks for this to be impossible), if skb_clone is called
> > simultaneously over that skb, both callers can get the same clone (the
> > "fast" clone) and different problems follow: wrong "clone_skb->users"
> > (1 as expected by the caller, but it should be, to be true, 2),
> > fclone_ref set to 3 involving further problems, ...
>
> Fast clones are only used by TCP where the original skb is
> never given to the outside world.  This plus the fact that
> a given TCP socket is single-threaded makes it safe.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Visit Openswan at http://www.openswan.org/
> Email: Herbert Xu ~{PmV>HI~} <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>
> Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/
> PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt
>
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