linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH nf-next] netfilter: xt_CHECKSUM: avoid bad offload warnings on GSO packets

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Date:   Thu, 24 Aug 2017 13:07:43 +0200
From:   Michal Kubecek <mkubecek@...e.cz>
To:     Florian Westphal <fw@...len.de>
Cc:     Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@...filter.org>,
        Jozsef Kadlecsik <kadlec@...ckhole.kfki.hu>,
        netfilter-devel@...r.kernel.org, coreteam@...filter.org,
        netdev@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>,
        Markos Chandras <markos.chandras@...e.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH nf-next] netfilter: xt_CHECKSUM: avoid bad offload
 warnings on GSO packets

On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 12:51:18PM +0200, Florian Westphal wrote:
> Michal Kubecek <mkubecek@...e.cz> wrote:
> > When --checksum_fill action is applied to a GSO packet, checksum_tg() calls
> > skb_checksum_help() which is only meant to be applied to non-GSO packets so
> > that it issues a warning.
> > 
> > This can be easily triggered by using e.g.
> > 
> >   iptables -t mangle -A OUTPUT -j CHECKSUM --checksum-fill
> > 
> > and sending TCP stream via a device with GSO enabled.
> > 
> > While this can be considered a misconfiguration, I believe the bad offload
> > warning is supposed to catch bugs in drivers and networking stack, not
> > misconfigured firewalls. So let's ignore such packets and only issue a one
> > time warning with pr_warn_once() rather than a WARN with stack trace and
> > tainted kernel.
> 
> Why issue a warning at all?
> What kind of action should be taken upon seeing such warning?

Check and fix the configuration. The reason why I left at least some
kind of warning is that the module does something that is unexpected as
the checksum is not calculated (this module is often used in
virtualization environments where "hardware checksum offload" in fact
means the checksum is not computed at all).

But maybe it would suffice to add a note in iptables-extensions(8) man
page explicitely saying that it doesn't work with GSO packets (and is of
questionable usefulness for TCP in general).

                                                         Michal Kubecek