netdev - Re: [RFC PATCH net-next v3 0/4] net: Introduce IFF_PROTO

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Date:	Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:04:41 -0700
From:	Anuradha Karuppiah <anuradhak@...ulusnetworks.com>
To:	Scott Feldman <sfeldma@...il.com>
Cc:	"David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
	Roopa Prabhu <roopa@...ulusnetworks.com>,
	Andy Gospodarek <gospo@...ulusnetworks.com>,
	Wilson Kok <wkok@...ulusnetworks.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH net-next v3 0/4] net: Introduce IFF_PROTO_DOWN flag.

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:37 PM, Scott Feldman <sfeldma@...il.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 8:39 AM, Anuradha Karuppiah
> <anuradhak@...ulusnetworks.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 10:45 PM, Scott Feldman <sfeldma@...il.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 10:38 AM,  <anuradhak@...ulusnetworks.com> wrote:
>>> > From: Anuradha Karuppiah <anuradhak@...ulusnetworks.com>
>>> >
>>> > User space daemons can detect errors in the network that need to be
>>> > notified to the switch device drivers.
>>> >
>>> > Drivers can react to this error state by doing a phy-down on the
>>> > switch-port which would result in a carrier-off locally and on the
>>> > directly connected switch. Doing that would prevent loops and
>>> > black-holes in the network.
>>>
>>> (Sorry if this was asked earlier)
>>>
>>> Can the application simply send a SETLINK with IFF_UP clear and the
>>> port driver's ndo_stop would bring the PHY link down?
>>
>>
>> Yes, Clearing IFF_UP on detecting errors (PROTO_DOWN) is possible and we
>> tried
>> that implementation as well. Unfortunately it failed because of the
>> following
>> reasons -
>>
>> 1. There is no way to disambiguate between admin_down (!IFF_UP) and an
>> APP/driver enforced error_down (IFF_PROTO_DOWN). Administrator or
>> automation-scripts that monitor the config assumed that switch-port
>> configuration had somehow fallen out of sync (and attempted to reinstate the
>> admin_up repeatedly).
>>
>> 2. Automatic error recovery was not possible; consider the following
>> scenario
>> for e.g.
>>    a. The MLAG peer-link is down so the MLAG app on the secondary switch has
>>       proto_down’ed all the MLAG ports (including switch-port swp1) by
>> clearing
>>       IFF_UP.
>>    b. At the same time the administrator is in the process of making some
>>       changes on the network connected to swp1. To avoid doing it live he
>> would
>>       admin_disable swp1 (!IFF_UP) by doing an "ip link set swp1 down" (this
>>       is a no-op as event #a has already cleared IFF_UP on swp1).
>>    c. If the MLAG peer-link recovers at this point the MLAG app on the
>>       secondary switch would try to automatically recover the MLAG ports
>>       by clearing proto_down (i.e. setting IFF_UP); including on swp1. Doing
>>       that overrides the administrator’s directive to keep swp1 admin_down.
>>       Overriding an admin-down in a live network can be very dangerous so it
>>       is not possible to do auto-error-recovery unless we have a way to
>>       disambiguate between the admin and error states
>
> That makes sense.
>
> Dang, this is so close to IFF_DORMANT.  The interface can be IFF_UP
> and link mode can be DORMANT.  Can the port driver kill PHY link if
> dev->flags&IFF_DORMANT in ndo_set_rx_mode()?  Would require
> IFF_DORMANT is included in dev->flags in __dev_change_flags().

Yes, IFF_DORMANT does seem close to what is needed; in the current/standard
interpretation IFF_DORMANT keeps the switch port phy-up and running (and most
PDUs are also exchanged in the dormant state). Like you said we could
re-interpret IFF_DORMANT in this context to phy-down the switch-port;
unfortunately we are already using IFF_DORMANT as well (in its standard
interpretation)...

We are using the dormant mode (for the MLAG app itself) to hold the MLAG port
in a brief/transition-ary suspended state when the switch-port link/carrier up
happens. This has been done to co-ordinate states across the MLAG peer switches
and to ensure that egress port block masks are programmed on the peer switch
before transitioning the local switch port to an OPER_UP state. If we didn't do
that the dual-connected server would see duplicate packets every time a
link-down to link-up happened on a MLAG port.

So IFF_DORMANT re-interpretation is not going to be easily possible for the
MLAG use case.
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